Tomorrow, Obama announces the National Security Team

Tomorrow morning at 10:40 a.m. Eastern, Obama and Biden will hold a press conference in Chicago to announce their national security appointments.

The big news is, of course, that Hillary Clinton will be named Secretary of State. She'll be at the press conference in Chicago. But, there will be several other key appointments, some we've heard about already, some new. "The Swamp" has the other names:

According to a Democrat familiar with the transition team's work, the former First Lady is part of a national security team that also includes: Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security; Eric Holder, for Attorney General; Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who will remain in his current position for at least one year; retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones, for National Security Adviser; retired Adm. Dennis Blair, for Director of National Intelligence; and Susan Rice, for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Some of these officials also are expected to appear at the news conference Monday.

So, Susan Rice will be our ambassador to the United Nations. There was a lot of buzz that Caroline Kennedy would be named to that U.N. post. Perhaps she'll be the next Senator from New York instead?

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Virginia is blue -- and getting bluer

Losing Virginia was a devastating blow to the Republicans this year. But, it wasn't a fluke. As the demographics of Virginia, particularly the ever-expanding Northern VA suburbs change, the state is turning even bluer. All that GOP immigrant bashing, and there have been some vocal haters in Virginia like Corey Stewart from Prince William County, have only helped the Democrats increase their margins.

A post-election analysis in today's Washington Post shows just how much things have changed since the 2000 election:

In Northern Virginia's outer suburbs, a growing number of nonwhite residents, particularly Hispanics, are diminishing what had long been a big source of votes for Republican candidates. Loudoun, Prince William and Stafford counties and Manassas and Manassas Park have all experienced double-digit increases in the percentage of nonwhite residents since 2000. And in each of those locations, Democrats' share of the vote increased proportionally.

The nonwhite population of Prince William, for example, has grown by 13 percentage points since 2000. President-elect Barack Obama carried the county with almost 58 percent of the vote -- 13 points better than former vice president Al Gore did in the 2000 presidential race.

I guess all that immigrant bashing by Mr. Stewart in Prince William County paid off -- for the Democrats. Great strategy, VA GOP. And, what an amazing shift in population -- and Democratic vote.

The changing demographics helped the Democratic vote in other exurban counties, too:

Loudoun experienced a 12-point gain in the minority population since 2000, and Obama did 13 percentage points better than Gore did in 2000. Obama did 10 points better than Gore in Stafford, which saw a 10 percent increase in the minority population since 2000.

This shift, matched with historical Democratic strength in the inner suburbs, makes Northern Virginia a huge source of votes for Democrats. The region's size, compared with the rest of the state, threatens Republicans' ability to win statewide if Democrats can continue to get their voters to the poll, demographers and political scientists suggest.

"The transformation in Northern Virginia has been rapid and dramatic, and Obama came out of Northern Virginia with a margin of [213,000] votes, and that is very hard to overcome," said Ken Billingsley, director of demographics and information for the Northern Virginia Regional Commission. "In Prince William, the change has already occurred, and I am not the least bit surprised that Stafford, Spotsylvania and Fredericksburg are moving in that direction."

It's not the same Virginia it was just 10 years ago. That's something for which we can all be thankful.

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Hitmen charge $100 a victim as Basra honor killings rise

Smells like... victory:

Authorities in the southern Iraqi city of Basra have admitted they are powerless to prevent 'honour killings' in the city following a 70 per cent increase in religious murders during the past year.

There has been no improvement in conviction rates for these killings. So far this year, 81 women in the city have been murdered for allegedly bringing shame on their families. Only five people have been convicted.

During 2007 the Basra security committee recorded 47 'honour killings' and three convictions. One lawyer in the city described how police were actively protecting perpetrators and said that a woman in Basra could now be murdered by hired hitmen for as little as $100 (£65).

The figures come despite international outrage which followed The Observer's coverage of the death of 17-year-old Rand Abdel-Qader, who was murdered by her father last April in an 'honour killing' after falling in love with a British soldier in Basra. The 4,000 British troops stationed in the city since the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 withdrew to the airport last September.

Rand Abdel-Qader was killed after her family discovered that she had formed a friendship with a 22-year-old infantryman whom she knew as Paul. She was suffocated by her father then hacked at with a knife. Abdel-Qader Ali was subsequently arrested and released without charge.

Rand's mother, Leila Hussein, who divorced her husband after the killing, went into hiding but was tracked down weeks later and assassinated by an unknown gunman. Her husband had told The Observer that police had congratulated him for killing his daughter.

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Holiday shopping off to slow start

Predictable, but not the news that retailers wanted to hear. If you are worried about your own job and unsure about the future, of course you won't spend as easily as in the past. The decline in consumer spending will of course mean lower Q4 corporate numbers which will probably mean more pressure on stocks next quarter when the numbers arrive. Declining growth and an inability to provide clear guidance for the future (and who can really forecast in this climate?) will translate into an extension of this choppy market.

The U.S. holiday shopping season got off to a slow start as consumers, squeezed by the economic crisis, bought carefully and said they would wait for better deals closer to Christmas.

Early results from the Black Friday weekend, which kicks off holiday sales one day after Thanksgiving, bolstered forecasts by some analysts that total holiday sales could contract for the first time since that data started being collected in the early 1990s.

ShopperTrak, which measures customer traffic, said Saturday that Black Friday sales rose 3 percent to $10.6 billion. That was slower than an 8.3 percent rise in 2007.

"The initial response by many people may be positive," said Telsey Advisory Group analyst Joseph Feldman of the increase.

But, Feldman said, excluding inflation the sales figures are roughly flat year over year. His firm still expects overall holiday sales will be flat to slightly down.

Shoppers interviewed Saturday said they were disappointed by the deals this weekend and bet stores would offer even steeper discounts in the weeks to come -- a worrisome sign for retailers struggling with weak profits.

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"The Mormons played a vital role in the Prop 8 battle, and traditional marriage would have lost had it not been for their support."

"The Mormons played a vital role in the Prop 8 battle, and traditional marriage would have lost had it not been for their support." - Donald Wildmon, American Family Association, email solicitation

There you have it. One of the lead religious right groups, and certainly one of the nastiest. The AFA, like the Mormons, have a little history with Jews. The AFA also has a history of promoting a known hate group that "echoes Nazi Germany." Great "Christian" partners, these Mormons have found. And their nasty new friends say that the anti-gay hate proposition would have lost if it weren't for the Mormons. And they wonder why so many Americans now hate them. Read More......

The case of the missing acorns

Interesting article in today's Washington Post about the dearth of acorns this year. I've been noticing the squirrels in my local park seem pretty thin for this time of year. There are no acorns:

The idea seemed too crazy to Rod Simmons, a measured, careful field botanist. Naturalists in Arlington County couldn't find any acorns. None. No hickory nuts, either. Then he went out to look for himself. He came up with nothing. Nothing crunched underfoot. Nothing hit him on the head.

Then calls started coming in about crazy squirrels. Starving, skinny squirrels eating garbage, inhaling bird feed, greedily demolishing pumpkins. Squirrels boldly scampering into the road. And a lot more calls about squirrel roadkill.

But Simmons really got spooked when he was teaching a class on identifying oak and hickory trees late last month. For 2 1/2 miles, Simmons and other naturalists hiked through Northern Virginia oak and hickory forests. They sifted through leaves on the ground, dug in the dirt and peered into the tree canopies. Nothing.

"I'm used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it's something I just didn't believe," he said. "But this is not just not a good year for oaks. It's a zero year. There's zero production. I've never seen anything like this before."

Where the heck are the acorns?

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Bill Clinton will release identity of donors; Hillary to be announced as Sec of State on Monday (reportedly)

Bill Clinton has refused for a while to release the list of donors to his library and foundation. If he's truly now prepared to release those names, it means Hillary will be our next Secretary of State. Get ready for the world to like us again.

Former President Bill Clinton has agreed to make public 200,000 donors to his presidential library and foundation as part of an agreement with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team designed to allow his wife -- Hillary Rodham Clinton -- to be named Secretary of State, according to two sources familiar with the arrangement.

The former president has also agreed to allow the State Department and, potentially, the White House, to vet his personal business interests and speeches so as to avoid potential conflicts of interest, according to transition officials.

The outlines of the deal cut by Obama and the Clintons emerged last week as it became increasingly clear that the New York Senator would be named Secretary of State shortly after Thanksgiving.

And in fact, there are reports that Obama will announce Hillary's appointment tomorrow. Read More......

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Good morning everyone. Hope you all had a great holiday. I took a week off. Petey, the new dog, joined Carlos and me on an excellent adventure as we drove up to Portland to see my family. We made a few stops along the way so Petey got to walk in New York's Central Park and on the Boston Common. And, he was a huge hit everywhere we went, especially with the family. The little guy is just so lovable.

Anyway, back to the real world. It's a mixed bag on the Sunday shows today. There is, of course, much about India. But, there are random guests like Laura Bush and Ted Turner. Clearly, it's a holiday weekend.

And, FOX is dutifully providing Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss with an open mike in time for his runoff on Tuesday.

Here's the lineup:

ABC's "This Week" — Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind.

___

CBS' "Face the Nation" — Authors round table.

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NBC's "Meet the Press" — First lady Laura Bush; Said Jawad, Afghanistan's ambassador to the U.S.; Ted Turner, CNN founder and author of a new memoir.

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CNN's "Late Edition" — Sens. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.; Sajjan Gohel, director of international security, Asia-Pacific Foundation; Ron Gettelfinger, president of United Auto Workers; Gene Sperling, former Clinton administration economic adviser; Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, the commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq.

"Fox News Sunday" _ Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.

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The mouse turns 40 next month

As much as I like using a mouse (or a Mac trackpad - which is so much better than what PCs offer) and as much as it has simplified computing, I still am partial to some of the old command line alternatives or drop down menus/hot keys that could be faster than dragging the stinkin' mouse across a page. (And those 8" floppy drives ruled too! Kidding...sort of.) Either way, the 40th anniversary of the mouse is only days away.

The name was never meant to stick. When Doug Engelbart and his team at the Stanford Research Institute in California designed a computer controller encased in a carved-out wooden block, with wheels mounted on the underbelly, one researcher nicknamed it a 'mouse'. 'We thought that when it had escaped out to the world it would have a more dignified name,' Engelbart recalled later. 'But it didn't.'

Engelbart's invention became the mouse that soared, an essential piece of computer hardware. Its 40th birthday will be celebrated next week when Engelbart returns to Stanford (now known as SRI International). The mouse was first shown to the world when he gave a presentation of a working network computer system in San Francisco on 9 December, 1968, which is still revered as 'the dawn of interactive computing'.

Yet in one sense Engelbart, now 83, was far ahead of his time. He never received royalties, partly because his patent ran out just before the tech revolution that saw the computer and mouse supplant pen and paper. Now the mouse faces growing competition from a new generation of touchscreens.

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India's Home Minister to resign after Mumbai attack

Accountability when something goes wrong? Wow, he should have been working in the Bush White House or Wall Street where accountability does not register. If he was in the US they would have given him a medal though perhaps not enough people were killed in the horrible attacks.

India's top security official offered his resignation Sunday, a senior aide said, as the government struggled under growing accusations of security failures following the Mumbai attacks that left at least 174 people dead.

Home Minister Shivraj Patil submitted his resignation letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but has not received a response, aide R.K. Kumar said.

Patil has become highly unpopular during a long series of terror attacks and his ouster has long been predicted in political circles.

"Our Politicians Fiddle as Innocents Die," read a headline Sunday in the Times of India newspaper, part of a growing chorus of criticism.

Imagine that. Public outrage too and a critical media. Sheesh. What do they think they're doing? Don't they know now is the time to blindly support team that allowed catastrophic failure and attack anyone who dares to criticize? Read More......

EU votes to drive bluefin tuna into extinction

The commercial fishing fleets in Europe have too much authority in the EU decision making process. (The US is not very impressive in this area either though at least there's a limited counter-balance with Canada in the region.) The EU lacks a long term sustainability program for fishing, voting over and over to allow catch limits that are higher than the market can sustain. As much as I prefer fish over meat I refuse to eat cod due to the stress on the stock. At markets I've witnessed baby swordfish for sale despite being well under the legal size limit. Even far away from the EU, their fishing fleets buy their way into African fishing territories, eliminating locals from the regional waters.

Every time the EU has a chance to bring sensible controls to the commercial fishing industry, they fold. I've never seen such desolate fishing along coastal waters as I do in France and it looks as though the offshore fishing won't last much longer either. The EU commercial fishing policies are as bad as the US (Bush) climate change policies, possibly even worse. There's simply no rational basis for the decisions other than giving the commercial fleets everything they want, which is precisely what Bush has done with climate change in the US. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Earlier this week, however, a vital opportunity to pull the bluefin back from the brink was missed when the official body charged with preventing the stock from collapsing agreed to allow catch quotas for 2009 far higher than its own scientists recommended.

Amid a chorus of protests and dismay from conservationists, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, endorsed a total allowable catch (TAC) of 22,000 tonnes for next year – while ICCAT's own scientists had recommended a TAC ranging from 8,500 to 15,000 tonnes per year, warning there were real risks of the fishery collapsing otherwise.

The scientists also urged a seasonal closure during the fragile spawning months of May and June, but the meeting agreed to allow industrial fishing up to 20 June.

The decision, which was branded "a disgrace" by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and fiercely attacked by other conservation bodies, was driven by the European Union, amid allegations that the EU had threatened developing nations with trade sanctions if they supported lower catch limits and extended closed seasons. During the meeting, the names of some countries appeared and disappeared from the more scientifically based proposals.

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This is incredible

What a contrast to what we see elsewhere. If only other businesses had such a mindset instead of seeing how much they can squeeze out of everyone for the pleasure of a few at the top.

Dave Tiderman wondered if the decimal point was in the wrong place when he opened his $35,000 company bonus. Jose Rojas saw his $10,000 check and thought, "That can't be right."

Valentin Dima watched co-workers breaking down in tears over their bonus checks and didn't trust his emotions. He drove home first, then opened his envelope: $33,000.

Year-end bonuses are rare these days. Rarer still is what the Spungen family, owners of a ball bearings company in Waukegan, Ill., about 40 miles north of Chicago, did as they sold the business.

They gave out whopping thank-you bonuses.

A total of $6.6 million is being shared by just 230 employees of Waukegan-based Peer Bearing Co., with facilities in England and the United States. Amounts varied and were based on years of service.

"They treated us like extended family," said Maria Dima, who works at Peer Bearing along with her husband, Valentin, and received a somewhat smaller check than he did. "We won the lottery."

With $100 million in sales last year, Peer recently was acquired by a Swedish company for an undisclosed amount. Danny Spungen, whose grandfather founded the company in 1941, said it was a unanimous family decision to thank employees with the bonuses.

Laurence and Florence Spungen and their four children decided on a bonus formula a year before the sale closed to SKF Group, "a gamble that we would come out OK as well," Danny Spungen said.

He and other family members signed, by hand, two thank-you cards to each employee, one in Spanish and one in English. Each card was printed with all the workers' names and the years they were hired. The text expressed gratitude for "the loyalty and hard work of our employees over the years."

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Thanksgiving in Paris

Another excellent Thanksgiving here in Paris, especially since I had the opportunity to enjoy the hard work and great cooking by another family. We used to host Thanksgiving parties here but I think I reached my limit when we crammed close to 35 people into 55m2 (half of that, really since no one ate in the bedroom, toilet or bathroom). Preparing in a small Parisian kitchen can easily take two days followed by another day or two of cleanup including dishes stacked up in the tub as we work through the stack. The last two years we had Thanksgiving dinner hosted by a Franco-American couple where the cook comes from Tennessee. That meant pecan pie and corn bread. I love both but growing up in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Ohio, we never had either so it was a great change.

This year an American family visiting from Berkeley hosted an outstanding dinner for 13 including their parents who were visiting from Ohio. A great addition (that I intend to try the next time I make stuffing) was stuffing with bits of merguez sausage, which I adore. The French twist to the dinner included Champagne and a nice cheese plate after dinner. When you're used to cooking in big American spaces, it's always a challenge to get used to Parisian sized kitchens and Betty Crocker-sized ovens that seem full when a 5 pound chicken is inside, let along a 14 pound turkey. Even with those challenges, wow, what a meal.

The parents of the California family are Republicans, so we were all treading lightly on the subject of politics and doing our best to avoid the topic so we did not offend the hosts or visiting parents. (We need to save our energy for our own internal family debates with the last remaining Republicans. I can't wait for Christmas!) Somehow the subject of Sarah Palin came up and naturally the discussion moved to the now infamous turkey slaughterhouse video. We were all laughing about how clueless she was though I did notice the otherwise friendly grandparents were not laughing quite as much as others. In fact, they weren't laughing at all. Uh oh, warning sign to change subjects. The problem is, Palin is the gift that keeps on giving so one story led to another and everyone (well, almost everyone) was laughing and then groaning about the $7 million book deal. The Palin book deal then led to the Joe the Plumber book deal (or is it music? or TV commercials?) and then *it* happened. The gravy bowl was being passed to the previously jovial grandfather and then bam, there it went. The gravy bowl fell and spilled creating a lake of brown gravy the size of Lake Erie in the middle of the table. Hmmm, maybe it's time to talk about something else.

We did move on and talked about the GI Bill and what a success it was in terms of giving millions of Americans the opportunity to seek higher education. Before the GI Bill universities were limited to fewer Americans so that program radically changed the US system. (Question: does anyone know if the GI Bill was available to women in any significant numbers or was it primarily men?) Change of subject, accomplished.

The Ohio grandparents left shortly after dessert (which included Southern pecan pie and homemade pumpkin pie made by the grandmother - it was excellent) and the discussion shifted back towards "socialist" programs such as the GI Bill and Medicare. My father also went to college on the GI Bill and later in life enjoyed the benefits of Medicare, another "socialist" program. It remains a mystery to me how so many people can overlook the "socialist" nature of such programs and be so critical of "socialism" when they've benefited from these programs, a point made by our delightful hosts. This was a point of conflict in my family for years and obviously I'm not alone on this one. Our hosts did a much better job of smoothing over the situation compared to the tradition in my family of passive aggressiveness.

As we were all leaving (and wrapping up the "socialism" discussion) our host left us with a great line that is so spot on: if the difference between "conservatism" and "socialism" is only a 3% tax rate difference at the top end, maybe there's not as much of a difference as some would like us to believe. Absolutely. But then what would we argue about? Read More......

Would you like some more poison in your baby formula? Thank George Bush

These people are pigs.

Two months ago, federal food regulators said they were unable to set a safety threshold for the industrial chemical melamine in baby formula. Now, however, they found a way to settle on a standard that allows for higher levels than those found in U.S.-made batches of the product.

Food and Drug Administration officials on Friday set a threshold of 1 part per million of melamine in formula, provided a related chemical is not present. They insisted the formulas are safe.

The development comes days after The Associated Press reported that FDA tests found traces of melamine in the infant formula of one major U.S. manufacturer and cyanuric acid, a chemical relative, in the formula of a second major maker. The contaminated samples, which both measured at levels below the new standard, were analyzed several weeks ago.

The FDA had said in early October it was unable to set a safety contamination level for melamine in infant formula.

So basically, the FDA has no idea what it's doing and made a decision affecting the lives of your children and grandchildren based on what was best for business. Absolutely sickening. This is why elections matter. This is what the Republicans would have been doing with the economic crisis, picking all sorts of "solutions" intended only to maximize the economic benefit to their corporate friends and not address the real problem. Read More......

Christmas cards for geeks

See the rest here. Read More......

Obama's picks

From Ben Smith at Poltico:

Barack Obama’s picks for cabinet and other senior posts are many things: centrists, veterans, rivals. Most of all, though, they’re big: Big names, big intellects, and big egos.

The president-elect’s national security and economic policy teams, inside the White House and out, will be led by power politics veterans, all but one of them older than the president-elect, and all accustomed to being the most important voice in the room.

While official announcements and Senate confirmations await, it appears that on national security decisions, Obama will have a team of heavyweights: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Vice President Joe Biden, retired four-star Marine general Jim Jones as his National Security Adviser, and four-star General David Petraeus as chief of U.S. Central Command.

His economic team is of similar stature: new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will find his rival for the job, Larry Summers, in the White House, while former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker will also be in the mix as head of a new economic recovery advisory board.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel seems unlikely to be shy about his views in either arena.

What's most important about that list is just how damn qualified everyone is. Not a political hack or pushover among them. (Well, other than Petraeus, who still leaves me wondering if he's anything more than a yes-man for whichever politician he's currently trying to curry favor with.) Our government is back in the hands of the adults. Of people who prefer to actually put country first, rather than simply bragging about it but never actually following through. Read More......

Saturday Morning Open Thread

So, I went into my first public library in perhaps two decades, and they've got the funniest thing. Electronic card catalogues. I was amazed. Talk about feeling like an old man. Or George Bush, Sr. Read More......

Here's our chance to extend our edge over China

Hire our Wall Street and City bankers! Let them work their magic on the Shanghai market, which is down over 60% from its 52 week high. Please, take them all before they strike again in our markets.

Officials from Shanghai, China's financial hub, will travel to the United States and Europe next month on a recruiting mission, potentially offering jobs to fund managers, policy analysts and others left jobless by the financial crisis.

Wu Jianrong, deputy director of the Shanghai Financial Service Office, told the official Xinhua news agency on Friday that the delegation would go to London, Chicago and New York in search of employees.

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"Tis the season

The American obsession refuses to ease up despite the economic crisis. From coast to coast the holiday atmosphere is hard to miss and priorities are in order. From New York:

A Wal-Mart worker was killed Friday when "out-of-control" shoppers desperate for bargains broke down the doors at a 5 a.m. sale. Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers shouted angrily and kept shopping when store officials said they were closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.

At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals for observation or minor injuries, and the store in Valley Stream on Long Island closed for several hours before reopening.

Shoppers stepped over the man on the ground and streamed into the store. When told to leave, they complained that they had been in line since Thursday morning.

And in California the initial report suggests it may not have been over this years hottest toy, but instead, related to the other American obsession, guns.

Two men pulled guns and shot each other to death in a crowded toy store Friday after the women with them erupted into a bloody brawl, witnesses said. Scared shoppers fled but no one else was hurt.

The violence erupted on Black Friday, the traditional post-Thanksgiving start of the holiday shopping surge, but authorities indicated the shooting wasn't related to a shopping frenzy.

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Tweety may be running for Senate against Specter in 2010

That's what Nate hears:

Chris Matthews, it appears, is in.

FiveThirtyEight has been hearing for some time that Matthews is serious about running for the United States Senate, but it took a trip to Georgia among the Georgia-runoff-congregated and well-connected Obama organizer throng to confirm.

According to multiple sources, who confirmed the Tip O'Neill staffer-cum-MSNBC host has negotiated with veteran Obama staffers to enlist in his campaign, Chris Matthews is likely to run for United States Senate in Pennsylvania in 2010. Matthews, 62, would run as a Democrat. Arlen Specter, the aging Republican incumbent, will be 80 if he chooses to run for re-election.

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Frozen in time: Shelters reveal WWII nightmare

Okay, I know the headline is scary, but the story is actually fascinating, and in an odd way hopeful. Really excellent article from the AP on these small caves in which 1/3 of the city of Caen hid out, for weeks, during the allied assault on Normandy. Many of the caves were just rediscovered, 100% in tact, just a they were left 60 years ago. Creepy.

The memories are 64 years old but retold with the clarity of yesterday: a young boy lowered by rope into a deep dark cave, watching the sky above shrink to a small and distant patch of blue.

That hole was home for a month for Gerard Mangnan, his family and dozens of others. And it likely saved their lives. While they huddled underground, Allied and Nazi troops above were waging one of the toughest battles of the D-Day invasion.

Now, generations later, the story of how caves and quarries became bomb shelters during the 1944 battle for the Normandy city of Caen is being brought alive by an amateur archaeologist, his photographer colleague, and the memories of survivors like Mangnan.

Most remarkably, the cave enthusiasts — Laurent Dujardin and Damien Butaeye — have rediscovered quarries that had lain largely undisturbed since the war, mysterious and eerie worlds frozen in time.

A shoe. A rusty bike. A child's coloring book. Jewelry. Cough mixture bottles. A box of Ridgways Finest Darjeeling Tea ("Grown at the altitude of 3,000 feet," says the still visible lettering)....

Butaeye and Dujardin guided AP journalists through one cave where several hundred people sheltered. It sent shivers down the spine, and not just because of the cold and damp. In a site so well preserved it was easy to imagine the hacking coughs of people packed together, children wailing, and old men groaning, the stink and discomfort, everyone wondering whether the relentless Allied bombing would bring down the caverns and bury them alive....

Roughly one-third of Caen's 60,000 inhabitants took refuge in about a dozen quarries, the biggest sheltering 8,000-10,000 people, said Simonnet. Some stayed a few days, others longer. Some emerged at day and sheltered at night. Mangnan, then 7, stayed underground for weeks without coming up.

The cave that the AP toured burrowed dozens of yards into a hill and its entrance, behind a house, was barely shoulder-wide — a narrow slippery crack in the rock that led down to larger caverns.

There, refugees slept on mattresses, straw or piles of wood shavings. Families marked out their space by piling stones into little walls. They are still visible....

His elder brother Roger, then 18, was killed falling down the hole on June 23, 1944, he said. Venturing outside, the brother had stolen some machine gun ammunition from the Germans. They chased him back, shooting. He leaped for the rope, but let go as he slid down.

"Shots were crackling around the hole," said Mangnan. "He fell at my feet, behind me."

Here lay a rusty fork and spoon, there, an ink bottle still screwed shut with ink inside.

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Lucy makes wine

Apropos of absolutely nothing.

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It always goes back to the Romans

Even the credit crisis. But besides that, what have they ever done for us?

Politicians searching for historical precedents for the current financial turmoil should start looking a bit further back after an Oxford University historian discovered what he believes is the world's first credit crunch in 88BC.

The good news is that Philip Kay knows how the Romans got themselves into financial bother. The bad news is no one knows how they got themselves out of it.

"The essential similarity between what happened 21 centuries ago and what is happening in today's UK economy is that a massive increase in monetary liquidity culminated with problems in another country causing a credit crisis at home. In both cases distance and over-optimism obscured the risk," said Kay, a supernumerary fellow at Wolfson College.

And here's a classic from the Monty Python crew: Read More......

Science, common sense returning to Washington

The Bush administration brought extremist business and extremist religious views to Washington and the results have been similar across the board. The Bush EPA has consistently been more concerned about what polluters need to help reduce costs as opposed to what is good for the environment where Americans live and work. The Interior Department sides with wealthy cattle ranchers and posh hunting resorts instead of bothering to protect endangered wildlife. Changing organizations that have been stocked full of GOP fringe ideologues is going to take time and money but it has to happen. Whether the GOP likes it or not, science needs to be the key factor in decision making and not religious theory.

The agencies have different mandates -- the EPA holds sway over air and water pollution, while Interior administers the nation's vast federal land holdings as well as the Endangered Species Act -- but both deal with some of the country's most pressing environmental concerns, such as climate change. And over the past eight years, many career employees and rank-and-file scientists have clashed with Bush appointees over a number of those of issues, including whether the federal government should allow California to regulate tailpipe emissions from automobiles and how best to prevent imperiled species from disappearing altogether.

In June 2007, Obama told reporters in Reno, Nev., that he would not hesitate to reverse many of the environmental policies Bush has enacted by executive order.

"I think the slow chipping away against clean air and clean water has been deeply disturbing," Obama added. "Much of it hasn't gone through Congress. It was done by fiat. That is something that can be changed by an administration, in part by reinvigorating the EPA, which has been demoralized."

Global warming policies are expected to mark one of the sharpest breaks between the Obama and the Bush administrations.

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Worker dies in Wal-Mart Black Friday stampede

The worker's family should sue the hell out of Wal-Mart. It seems to me that these stores WANT a mass of people pounding at the door so that the moment they open they'll have great video for the evening news of people just swarming into the store. They know people get trampled, we see videos every year of people getting trampled. But they continue to do these cute stunts. This guy didn't have a chance. And while it's initially tempting, I don't necessarily blame the people in line. Anyone who has ever been in a hideously packed line knows what it's like when people behind you start pushing, you can push back against one person but you can't really push back against 25 or 50 or 500 people - it's a bit like trying to stop a river. Seems to me that Wal-Mart, and every other store, knows the potential for trampling. I'd like to know what they did to prevent this from happening.

From the NY Daily News:

A Wal-Mart worker died after being trampled when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island store Friday morning, police and witnesses said.

The 34-year-old employee, a temporary maintenance worker, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.

Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.

"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too...I literally had to fight people off my back."

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Krugman on the power of ideas

I've been reading a lot of Paul Krugman of late, trying to see what sense I can make of the economic crisis. I took a few economic courses in grad school, and did well in them and found them rather fascinating, but economics, it seems to me, is a bad spectator sport. It's not an easy thing to understand, period - but especially if you, like me, are gleaning your economics knowledge from the occasional newspaper article (or 60 second story on ABC News). That's why I'm really liking Krugman.

His blog can be a bit challenging at times (we haven't been challenged in 8 years), but his articles are great even for people like me. To wit, his latest on what needs to be done for the economic recover. It's long, read it all:

As readers may have gathered, I believe not only that we're living in a new era of depression economics, but also that John Maynard Keynes—the economist who made sense of the Great Depression—is now more relevant than ever. Keynes concluded his masterwork, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, with a famous disquisition on the importance of economic ideas: "Soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil."

We can argue about whether that's always true, but in times like these, it definitely is. The quintessential economic sentence is supposed to be "There is no free lunch"; it says that there are limited resources, that to have more of one thing you must accept less of another, that there is no gain without pain. Depression economics, however, is the study of situations where there is a free lunch, if we can only figure out how to get our hands on it, because there are unemployed resources that could be put to work. The true scarcity in Keynes's world—and ours—was therefore not of resources, or even of virtue, but of understanding.

We will not achieve the understanding we need, however, unless we are willing to think clearly about our problems and to follow those thoughts wherever they lead. Some people say that our economic problems are structural, with no quick cure available; but I believe that the only important structural obstacles to world prosperity are the obsolete doctrines that clutter the minds of men.

PS Krugman also taught me a new word today, "disquisition":

A formal discourse on a subject, often in writing.

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Payback is a bitch

Reader Shano sent me this vid. I'd heard about it, but never knew there was actually video. It's Anita Bryant. And she's about to meet Mr. Pie.

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Rachel Maddow is thankful that George Bush and Dick Cheney are leaving

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Bush's last Christmas Gift to us: Toxic Toys

These people truly are incredible. It's as if none of them have children or grandchildren they care about it. From McJoan over at DKos:

Congress in August passed a landmark consumer safety law that raises standards for toys and virtually bans several hormone-like chemicals called phthalates in products for children under 12.

Lawmakers wanted toys with the controversial chemicals to be off the market when the law takes effect Feb. 10, according to a statement from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., co-author of the ban.

Last week, however, a staff attorney at the agency responsible for carrying out the new regulations — the Consumer Product Safety Commission — released a legal opinion stating that stores may continue to sell toys with phthalates, as long as those items were made before Feb. 10. That could allow toys with phthalates to remain on the shelves for years, with no way for parents to know which toys contain the chemicals, Feinstein says.

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Commercial real estate pointing towards crisis

How many more shoes are there still to drop? The commercial real estate market was quite similar to private real estate except the numbers are much larger and payment terms much shorter. Who wants to bet their bailout will be easier than the bailout for homeowners?

Hotels in Tucson, Ariz., and Hilton Head, S.C., also are about to default on their mortgages.

That pace is expected to quicken. The number of late payments and defaults will double, if not triple, by the end of next year, according to analysts from Fitch Ratings Ltd., which evaluates companies' credit.

"We're probably in the first inning of the commercial mortgage problem," said Scott Tross, a real estate lawyer with Herrick Feinstein in New Jersey.

That's bad news for more than just property owners. When businesses go dark, employees lose jobs. Towns lose tax revenue. School budgets and social services feel the pinch.

Companies have survived plenty of downturns, but economists see this one playing out like never before. In the past, when businesses hit rough patches, owners negotiated with banks or refinanced their loans.

But many banks no longer hold the loans they made. Over the past decade, banks have increasingly bundled mortgages and sold them to investors. Pension funds, insurance companies, and hedge funds bought the seemingly safe securities and are now bracing for losses that could ripple through the financial system.

"It's a toxic drug and nobody knows how bad it's going to be," said Paul Miller, an analyst with Friedman, Billings, Ramsey, who was among the first to sound alarm bells in the residential market.

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UBS to allow new investigation into business practices

UBS has been kicked rather hard due to its business practices, writing down billions and scrambling for a government bailout back home in Switzerland. While none of that is comes as much of a surprise for Phil Gramm's employer, the post-bubble actions most definitely are surprising. Executives are either declining or giving back bonuses - millions of dollars worth of bonuses - and the company is going to allow a review of its business. The fact that we have seen nothing like this on Wall Street is not only disappointing, it's infuriating as hell.

Wall Street continues to get a free ride when they ought to be jumping and asking "how high?" to the country. Somehow there continues to be a total lack of accountability in America these days but hats off to the Swiss for moving in the right direction.

UBS found itself in need of government support after taking close to $50 billion in write-downs on subprime debt and other risky assets. The deal includes a 6 billion franc capital injection and a plan to move up to $60 billion of remaining risky assets to a new fund.

In a concession to shareholders Kurer also said the bank will allow another investigation into its losses and the role of former executives, including whether it should take legal action against any individuals.

Earlier reports from both UBS and the Swiss Federal Banking Commission found no evidence of individual breaches of duty by any current or previous senior executives, Kurer added.

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The pro-family Obamas

Conservative writer Kathleen Parker isn't going to have any friends left soon:

Obama's example could have society-altering effects, especially in the African American community. By his example, he telegraphs the following messages: Being smart is good; education is good; being a good father is essential. Being an egghead is cool.

Conservatives insist, correctly, that culture matters. Many liberals think so, too, by the way. Why, some liberals even stay married their entire lives to the same person and raise children to do the same.

You want Ward Cleaver? Meet Barack Obama. Michelle is June Cleaver with a law degree. Family values don't get more traditional than those of the Obamas, who ooze marital bliss and whose adorable daughters make feminist cynics want to bake cookies and learn to smock.

Though we may perish of boredom, the Obamas may do more to elevate the American family than all the pro-marriage initiatives conceived by those who claim to speak for the deity.

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It's Black Friday

Shop shop shop shop shop shop shop...

I have to admit, as worried as I am about the economy, and whether any of us will see any income at all next year, all of those dream buys (mmm.... flat screen TV) are getting awfully tempting with all the falling prices. What are you guys doing? Are you truly cutting back? Are you going to skip a cut-rate deal on a luxury buy you've always wanted, because of concern about money? Is anyone really cutting back on Christmas spending?

More from the NYT.

“There’s no reason to suspect this will end,” said Dan de Grandpre, editor in chief of Dealnews.com, which has been tracking Black Friday deals for about a decade. “This kind of heavy discounting will continue until we see some retailers start to fail, until they start to go out of business.”

Indeed, the intense competition could erode profits at many chains. Some retailing analysts even fear it could condition consumers to shop only when merchandise is deeply discounted.

Still, stores plan to pull out all the stops on Friday and through the weekend. After all, November and December sales make up 25 to 40 percent of many retailers’ annual sales, according to the National Retail Federation, an industry group. (The day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday because it was, historically, the day that many retailers moved into the black, or became profitable for the year.)

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Friday morning open thread

Well, the pooch discovered YouTube last night and it was quite amusing. You see, Carmela has this thing where any time anyone is typing at the computer, she wants up on your lap so she can half stand on your lap and half stand on the keyboard, and if she really gets comfortable, she than lays down and sleeps in the 4 inch space between the keyboard and the end of the table. (Interestingly enough, Chris' cat Sushi does the exact same thing.)

Well, last night, after Carmela jumped up on the keyboard, again, my sis thought it might be fun to put find some barking dogs on YouTube and see how Carmela the interloper would react. It was quite interesting. She noticed the screen, but seemed a bit perplexed by it (see the first photo), but she really noticed the speakers. The thing is they clearly had her a bit confused, her head kept cocking back and forth, and she'd look at one speaker, then the other - all the time twitching her nose, seemingly trying to get a scent. Oh the fun :-) Read More......

Japanese industrial production down, deeper and longer drop forecasted

The trend continues and it's not a pretty sight.

Japanese industrial production dropped sharply in October and manufacturers warned of even more dramatic falls in coming months, prompting warnings that Japan's recession will be even deeper and longer than previously thought.

The bleak industrial data, combined with sliding household spending and falling retail sales, will reinforce the Bank of Japan's focus on downside risks for the world's second-largest economy, but economists remain divided on whether it will cut its already low rates even further, even as the risk of deflation grows.

Japan is now firmly caught up in the financial crisis, with its big exporters such as Toyota and other car makers facing tumbling orders from key customers in the United States, Europe -- and increasingly Asia as well.

Exporters had been the main engine of growth for Japan's economy but Takumi Tsunoda, senior economist at Shinkin Central Bank Research, said their output could post its biggest ever quarterly fall in the fourth quarter.

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Indian military storms Jewish center, Mumbai standoff continues

The standoff continues but not many answers yet about the attackers. From CNN:

Authorities said the death toll from the coordinated attacks carried out on at least seven sites Wednesday was at 125, including at least six foreigners and 14 police officers. Some 327 people were wounded.

Soldiers and police have suffered a number of casualties while fighting the terrorists inside the Taj, Thamburaj said, declining to give more details because he believed the information could aid the attackers.

Members of India's premier counterterrorist force were also seeking to end standoffs at another luxury hotel, The Oberoi, and the Jewish center, known as the Nariman House.

Two dozen soldiers could be seen rappelling down ropes from military choppers onto the roof of the Nariman House early Friday.

For hours afterward, throngs of onlookers heard sounds of gunfire and at least 10 explosions coming from inside.

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Compassionate conservatism in Japan?

Sounds like it.

Japan's gaffe-prone prime minister is in trouble again -- this time for a remark criticizing the elderly as a tax burden for racking up medical expenses.

"They're hobbling around and constantly going to the doctor," Prime Minister Taro Aso was quoted as saying in a transcript of a Nov. 20 meeting of ministers on economic policies.

Aso also said the elderly should be faulted for not exercising enough.

The transcript was released overnight, drawing immediate criticism in the Japanese media and forcing an apology from the prime minister Thursday.

"I apologize if the remarks offended people who are suffering illnesses," Aso said on nationally televised news.

He told reporters that he intended to talk about the value of preventive medicine and merely highlight the gap between people who take care of their health and those who do not.

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Not Thanksgiving, just nice

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Political debates with family over the holidays?

How is it possible *not* to have these discussions when families get together? My family had a mix of Democrats and Republicans and it wasn't possible to avoid drifting into politics. Even last year during a visit we had a good old fashioned barn burner related to the Hillary campaign, who my sister supported. It's part of what you do when you get together and nobody holds a grudge. Well, not too much, anyway.

As families gather around the dinner table this holiday season, some members will do their best to keep one particular item off the menu: politics.

It's a touchy topic to raise in a family of various political stripes. With the divisive presidential election fresh in the minds of Americans, bipartisan families will have to tolerate their differences under one roof for several hours during the holidays. Throw in alcohol and spirited support for a political candidate, and tensions are bound to burst.

How about at your holiday gatherings? Debates or no debates? Read More......

The one where Joey got Monica's turkey stuck on his head

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Thanksgiving turkey eating contest

Only in America.

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A little Thanksgiving trivia

I was familiar with a few, but others were new. The last slide (about the name "turkey") conflicts with the story that I've always heard which had something to do with a shipment of the birds arriving in port and local confusion over what the birds were and where they originated. According to that story, the ship had originated in the country of Turkey though the birds joined at a previous US port. In France they are called "d'inde" (from India) for similar reasons, according to the story.

Who knows the real story, but it's worth a discussion at the table when you need to change the subject. More trivia from Time. Read More......

President Bartlet calls the Butterball Hotline

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Charlie Chaplin's Thanksgiving

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Nothing says Hanukkah quite like a Christmas tree

Is there anything they haven't bungled in the last eight years? Stupid is sooooo out this season. Read More......

How to deep fry a turkey

This was last Thanksgiving at mom's. Surprisingly, no one got killed.

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Chandler's Worst Thanksgiving

Okay, that was your one minute of bad news, now back to the holiday. And we'll be back at the top of the hour, each hour, all day long, with a new Thanksgiving post, including lots of great YouTubes.

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In other non-holiday news...

Lots of horrible news today. I told Chris we were going to try to keep the news "nice" for the holidays, but outside of the US the news is just horrible. And important. So it's difficult not to update you. Here goes, all at once:

- Afghan police: 4 dead in blast near US Embassy
- Thai leader declares emergency to clear airports
- Indian troops raid hotels to free hostages
- China's economic downturn deepens
- And CNN reports an Air New Zealand plane just crashed into the Mediterranean off of France - thankfully only 7 people were reportedly on board. Read More......

A little Carmela blogging

Dead to the world.



So is it just me, or... Read More......

Le Grande Thanksgiving

From Art Buchwald, decades ago. I'll excerpt the first part, but do read the rest:

This confidential column was leaked to me by a high government official in the Plymouth colony on the condition that I not reveal his name.

One of our most important holidays is Thanksgiving Day, known in France as le Jour de Merci Donnant .

Le Jour de Merci Donnant was first started by a group of Pilgrims ( Pelerins ) who fled from l'Angleterre before the McCarran Act to found a colony in the New World ( le Nouveau Monde ) where they could shoot Indians ( les Peaux-Rouges ) and eat turkey ( dinde ) to their hearts' content.

They landed at a place called Plymouth (now a famous voiture Americaine ) in a wooden sailing ship called the Mayflower (or Fleur de Mai ) in 1620. But while the Pelerins were killing the dindes, the Peaux-Rouges were killing the Pelerins, and there were several hard winters ahead for both of them. The only way the Peaux-Rouges helped the Pelerins was when they taught them to grow corn ( mais ). The reason they did this was because they liked corn with their Pelerins.

In 1623, after another harsh year, the Pelerins' crops were so good that they decided to have a celebration and give thanks because more mais was raised by the Pelerins than Pelerins were killed by Peaux-Rouges.

Every year on the Jour de Merci Donnant, parents tell their children an amusing story about the first celebration.

It concerns a brave capitaine named Miles Standish (known in France as Kilometres Deboutish) and a young, shy lieutenant named Jean Alden. Both of them were in love with a flower of Plymouth called Priscilla Mullens (no translation). The vieux capitaine said to the jeune lieutenant :

"Go to the damsel Priscilla ( allez tres vite chez Priscilla), the loveliest maiden of Plymouth ( la plus jolie demoiselle de Plymouth). Say that a blunt old captain, a man not of words but of action ( un vieux Fanfan la Tulipe ), offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart of a soldier. Not in these words, you know, but this, in short, is my meaning....

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