Orcas go surfing in New Zealand

This must be amazing to see in person. Great shot by Michael Cunningham. Apparently some of the local surfers aren't bothered by the orcas and they will continue riding the waves with them. I eventually got used to diving with sharks while in southern Africa, though it did take a while. Even then, the largest shark I saw was much smaller than these lovely creatures. But of course, surfers are always a special crowd that won't let something like a shark ruin the day.

Orcas, or killer whales, positioned themselves prominently and made it clear they were the real experts -- and that no mere human on a surfboard was going to deny them whatever waves they wanted.

"They knew what they were doing," Michael Cunningham, a Northern Advocate photographer and witness, told the newspaper. "They looked like they'd done it before."

New Zealand's orcas, unlike those in other parts of the world, are known to occasionally embark on surfing forays, but rarely is someone on the beach ready with a camera.

Read the rest of this post...

Those Taiwanese animators on the TSA porno scanner

Read the rest of this post...

Johns Hopkins doctor on TSA scanners: 'statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these X-rays'

Despite what the TSA and Michael Chertoff say, the science is not settled on these machines.

Dr. David Brenner, head of the center for radiological research at Columbia University in New York, told the London Telegraph in a June 29 story that considering the large number of people who frequent the nation's airports, wide-ranging exposure, even to minimal amounts of radiation, could add up to one big concern.

"If all 800 million people who use airports every year were screened with X-rays, then the very small individual risk multiplied by the large number of screened people might imply a potential public health or societal risk," he said. "The population risk has the potential to be significant."

Scientists with the University of California at San Francisco were so worried that they wrote a letter to the White House Office of Science and Technology in April raising "a number of red flags" on the scanners' safety.

"While the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high," the letter said in part, adding concerns that "independent safety data do not exist" and raising the potential for further harm if a high dosage was accidentally emitted.

Read the rest of this post...

Video: Kitten cuteness

As HuffPost Hill put it, this video is like a cuteness fractal. Just keep watching until the very end, it's only 38 seconds long.

Read the rest of this post...

Detroit looking at GOP to help slow or stop fuel efficiency

How do these companies even find enough money to lobby? Maybe now might be a good time to invest in modern technology and quality instead of moving backwards. Bloomberg:

General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC may get relief from regulations such as higher fuel-economy standards as Michigan Republicans seek posts leading two U.S. House committees.

Representative Fred Upton of Kalamazoo is among candidates to become chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees legislation on vehicle-safety and emissions, and Republican David Camp from Midland is in line to head the House Ways and Means Committee, which sets policy on tax issues.

“The election was a piece of luck for Detroit,” Sean McAlinden, chief economist at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said in an interview. “When they needed a Democrat to bail them out with a bankruptcy, they got Obama. Now they need Republicans to fight these fuel mandates, and maybe even slow them down.”

Read the rest of this post...

Anderson Cooper on the porno scanner conflict of interest

This brings me back to the duopoly problem. It's time we forget about Democrats versus Republicans and pay much more attention to how they're so closely aligned. Besides being a privacy crisis, this is very much a democracy crisis on quite a few problems that we face as a country. Read the rest of this post...

Sarah Palin believes she can beat Obama

Yet another indication from Sarah that Sarah is running for President. And, she thinks she can win. Via ABC:

Sarah Palin says she is seriously considering a run for the White House, and she believes she could beat President Obama in 2012, the former Alaska governor told ABC News' Barbara Walters.

"I'm looking at the lay of the land now, and ... trying to figure that out, if it's a good thing for the country, for the discourse, for my family, if it's a good thing," Palin said in an interview scheduled to air in full Dec. 9 on ABC as part of Walters' "10 Most Fascinating People" of 2010.

Asked Walters: "If you ran for president, could you beat Barack Obama?"

"I believe so," Palin said.

Yeah, I fear for our country and the world. Obama really better get his act together ASAP.

And, thanks again, John McCain, for inflicting this menace upon us.

Read the rest of this post...

Write-in candidate Murkowski defeats Palin's hand-picked candidate

AP has called it:

Sen. Lisa Murkowski has become the first Senate candidate in more than 50 years to win a write-in campaign.

Murkowski emerged victorious after a painstaking, two-week count of write-in ballots showed she has overtaken over tea party rival Joe Miller.

This means Murkowski beat Palin. Read the rest of this post...

Pelosi has been elected as Minority Leader

Here's one bit of good news:

Despite the party's drubbing in the midterm elections, Speaker Nancy Pelosi will remain the Democratic leader in the next Congress.

Members of the caucus voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to make Pelosi minority leader, brushing aside a challenge by Rep. Heath Shuler (N.C.), a Blue Dog Democrat who says Pelosi's controversial public image and low approval ratings are a liability to Democrats looking ahead to 2012.

The tally was 150-43.

We know there are 43 dopes in the Democratic caucus. I'm sure they're all getting talking points from Third Way.

Yes, the GOPers hate her. I'm sure none of that is misogyny, right? But, Pelosi is the only one in Democratic leadership who knows how to lead. Her caucus bore the brunt of the 2010 elections. But, she's the only one who gives Capitol Hill Democrats a spine. Read the rest of this post...

Members of Congress became significantly richer during the crisis

They sound an awful lot like the bankers, don't they? It should be noted that insider trading laws do not apply to this crowd. It's the duopoly, stupid. CNBC:

Despite a devastating recession, the collective personal wealth of congressional members increased by more than 16 percent between 2008 and 2009, according to study released Wednesday by the Center for Responsive Politics

The study—based on federal financial disclosure data released earlier this year—also found that more than half of all members—261—were millionaires.

About one in five of those had an average calculated wealth in 2009 of att least $10 million or more. Eight of the 261 were in the $100 million-plus range.

Read the rest of this post...

Insurers gave US chamber $86m to oppose health care reform

Bloomberg:

Health insurers last year gave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce $86.2 million that was used to oppose the health-care overhaul law, according to tax records and people familiar with the donation.

The spending exceeded the insurer group’s entire budget from a year earlier and accounted for 40 percent of the Chamber’s $214.6 million in 2009 spending. The expenditures reflect the insurers’ attempts to influence the bill after Democrats in Congress and the White House put more focus on regulation of the insurance industry.

Should have seen this coming. Many of us did. In good news, the White House is reaching out to the Chamber of Commerce to make nice. Let's sincerely hope that they don't give away the farm, thinking the Chamber will suddenly be their friend. It won't. It's not the way this town works. You'd hope the President would have figured that one out by this point. But judging by his recent comments, that he thinks he wasn't bipartisan enough the last two years, he clearly hasn't. Read the rest of this post...

The airport full-body scanners are made by ex-DHS chief Michael Chertoff's consulting client

Jane Hamsher has a nice rundown on how we got the "show me your junk" full-body airport scanners — and who benefits (my emphasis):

This goes to show just how how constant threats of “terror” are used to create new markets for products nobody needs. The public is then intimidated into compliance in the name of “national security,” when in reality they’re sacrificing their dignity, their civil liberties and their tax dollars for the sake of enormous profits:

2005: Michael Chertoff, as head of Homeland Security, orders the first batch of porno scanners from a company called Rapiscan Systems. After his departure, Chertoff gave dozens of interviews using his government credentials to promote the device. What he didn’t tell people was that Rapiscan was one of the clients of his consulting company, The Chertoff group.

Jane continues the tale nicely. Once Chertoff got Rapiscan's foot in the door, it was just a matter of expanding (and funding) the program. That opportunity was provided by the Christmas 2009 underpants bomber — and by most Americans' susceptibility to fear, of course.

Which is what the TSA junk-groping is about. By making the groping as intolerable as possible, the herd will be more willing to walk through the machines. Sounds like we're going to need more of them.

Yes, ultimately this is a story about money, with similarities to the Prisons-for-Profit story in Arizona. And ground zero is Michael Chertoff, moving from head of Homeland Security to head of his own security consulting firm, then converting his former DHS vendor into his current DHS consulting client, and continuing to flog their goods to a government eager to buy his cred and their products.

Quid pro quo: your tax dollars at work. From your pocket to Chertoff's, with a detour at the Rapiscan cash register. To put it simply, your junk being groped so Chertoff and his friends can make money.

Lame Duck connection — The relationship that current government officials have with their future lobbying clients will be one of the biggest obstacles to getting anything decent done in the looming Lame Duck congress. You might think that all of those congress-types who are out of a job in January are now free to vote their consciences (for a change).

You would be wrong. Those people really are out of a job in January. Who do you think they're going to work for next? People with money, of course. Certainly not us citizens — we're getting poorer by the day.

What you can do. Sign the petition. Then tell every non-flyer you know what waits for them at the airport. And be sure to tell them ahead of their once-a-year holiday travel. Graphic descriptions will help get the point across.

You'll have to decide for yourself whether stoking their anxious anticipation is in the nation's best interest. For me, that's an easy one to answer.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Investment banker on list to replace Summers

Change we can believe in. Like others, I've been very concerned that the White House hasn't listened enough to what investment bankers need and want.

Former Treasury official Roger Altman is among the candidates being considered to replace Larry Summers as director of President Barack Obama's National Economic Council, a White House official said.

Altman, who is founder and chairman of Evercore Partners, a New York-based boutique investment bank, met Obama at the White House on Tuesday, the official said.

The official stressed that the process of picking a new NEC director, who coordinates economic policy for the president, was in an early stage.

Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Today, the President is holding his monthly meeting with the Afghanistan/Pakistan national security team. All the key players are there: Biden, Gates, Clinton, UN Ambassador Rice, the respective ambassadors and a slew of staffers.

Some time freed up on the President's schedule this week when McConnell and Boehner blew off their meeting with the Obama. They gave some lame-ass excuse about scheduling conflicts. I think this stunt is unprecedented. All of the Villagers who have been whining about bipartisanship really need to shut up. The GOPers have never been willing to work with Obama. And, they just tipped their hand again. (Note to White House: Stop trying to appease the Villagers and start fighting for what you purport to believe in. Seriously.)

Today, the House Democrats will elect Nancy Pelosi as their leader. Right-wing Dem. Heath Shuler is challenging her. He's fast becoming a caricature of himself. I do wonder if those political geniuses at Third Way are managing his whip operation. Shuler sure seems like their kind of Democrat, meaning an opportunistic conservative with no real Democratic values.

What else? Read the rest of this post...

EU team flies into Ireland for emergency talks

They're talking about more austerity, but a bailout is surely in the queue. The larger question is how long before this team heads off to Portugal? This is a problem that the EU can't allow to spread.

Ministers refused to speculate about Ireland’s financial needs, estimated by Barclays Capital at about 80 billion euros. Klaus Regling, manager of the rescue facility, said the EU could raise the money in five to eight working days.

Some EU countries want to provide as much as 100 billion euros in aid, the Wall Street Journal said, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne may be obliged to authorize some form of loans to Ireland and may favor direct loans from the U.K. to Ireland over participation in any EU bailout, the Financial Times reported without attribution.

“At the request of the Irish authorities, an IMF team will participate in a short and focused consultation, together with the European Commission, and the ECB, in order to determine the best way to provide any necessary support to address market risks,” the Washington-based International Monetary Fund said in an e-mailed statement late yesterday.

Read the rest of this post...

HSBC thumbs nose at regulators and customers, doubles salaries

They will never get it. The idea that they can be reasoned with is laughable, but that's what our leaders believe. It's all about lining their pockets with as much cash as possible because they are convinced they're all geniuses. They've gotten away with everything so it's easy to see how they believe it. If you are a customer, why would you tolerate this? If you are an investor, wouldn't now be the time to start asking questions?

HSBC plans to double the basic pay of hundreds of its top investment bankers in a move that risks inflaming the row about City pay.

Amid growing opposition to large cash awards, from the government, regulators and the public, the banking group will significantly increase the percentage of the total payout that its senior investment bankers receive as salary, and reduce the bonus component. New Europe-wide rules, which are likely to be finalised next month, will defer the payment of bonuses and reduce the percentage paid in cash.

As the pay increases are handed out by HSBC to staff across the world, especially those in London, New York and Hong Kong, Goldman Sachs is preparing to name 100 or so new partners, who will immediately be propelled into top-earning status at the Wall Street firm.

Read the rest of this post...

French and Mexican food added to UNESCO's heritage list

What a good idea. Now I'm especially hungry for a meal with a delicious mole poblano sauce, since I can easily find the French classics nearby.

UN cultural organisation Unesco has added France's traditional gastronomic meal to the world's intangible heritage list at a committee meeting in Kenya.

This is the first time that gastronomy has made it on to the list.

Traditional Mexican food has also been included on the list by Unesco experts, who have been meeting in Nairobi.

Other cultural elements said to have been recognised include Spain's flamenco, Colombia's marimba instrument and chants from its Pacific coast.

Read the rest of this post...