Must be the season of the list

Atrios tweeted that he hates the end of year list season. I have mixed feelings myself. There's way too many mediocre ones, but I don't mind the interesting ones. And this year it's the "end of the decade" lists that are coming out. I kind of like the let's review thing for the decade. I mean over ten years, I've forgotten some stuff and I'm also curious to see what people think of as "the best" so here's the best lists I've seen in the last couple of days.

Starting with the meta, Matt posted this top 20 internet lists of 2009. I didn't drill down to the contents of each one, but the lists of lists was interesting in itself.

Robert Ebert put up one I liked. Best Movie Posters of the Decade. Didn't love all of them, but he's got a good eye.

Drew passed on this one. A short narrated photo essay. Photos by Maisie Crow, 2009 Boston Globe summer intern.

And I'm not a really a fan of this comic, but this panel did make me laugh. Quite possibly the worst pun of the decade.

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RIP Gene Barry

I can't believe there's been so little mourning for Gene Barry, who died this week at the age of 90. Maybe you have to be a senior citizen to remember him well enough to be sorry he's gone. Still, he didn't even get his own obit at the link above. He had to share it with some other guy.

I loved him myself, especially in his roles as Bat Materson



And as a millionaire cop in Burke's Law



I don't think I missed a single episode of either series when I was a kid. Burke's Law later morphed into a couple of other incarnations that didn't work as well but I still watched him every chance I got. Had a bit of a movie star crush on him. Always thought he was sexier than Rock Hudson who I think got much more attention back then than he deserved. I liked Gene better because he wasn't quite as pretty and he seemed smarter.

Really surprised there was so little mention in the news or the blogs. Thanks to Mark Knoller for telling me, or I wouldn't known.

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Losing Candidate Challenges Winner for Atheism

There are parts of this state that are truly frightening. A winning candidate in a local City Council race in Ashville, (not to be confused with Asheville), is being challenged because he's a vowed atheist. Conservatives in the town want to sue the city for swearing him in without requiring him to pledge to God. Apparently there is an obscure section in the state consititution that doesn't allow atheists to hold office.

One opponent, H. K. Edgerton, is threatening to file suit against the city to challenge Mr. Bothwell’s swearing in. “My father was a Baptist minister,” Mr. Edgerton said. “I’m a Christian man. I have problems with people who don’t believe in God.”

This provision of course violates the United States Constitution but small matter to these fundie sorts who appear to believe the separation of Church and State only applies to non-Christian religions. Meanwhile, the winning Councilman is taking it in stride. As he notes, this appears to more about sour grapes that a conservative candidate didn't win. The cons in Ashville might want to take a moment to reflect on why that happened instead of tying up the courts with frivolous lawsuits.

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The Authorized Money Launderers

This isn't news to me. It's long been known in the drug policy reform community that big banks launder drug money.

Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.

This is one very big reason they haven't legalized drugs. They know it would destroy the black market profit margins and all that lovely money would dry up. Just as the banksters own our politicians, the gangsters own the banksters. Ironic really that without the outlaws, the white collar criminals would have gone under.

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House Cracks Down on Banksters

This is just the first step, but it seems like one in the right direction. The House passed a regulatory bill to oversee the banksters on a vote of 223 to 202.

The 1,279-page House bill would create a new federal agency dedicated to consumer protection, establish a council of regulators to police the financial landscape for systemic risks, initiate oversight of the vast derivatives market and give the government power to wind down large, troubled firms whose collapse could endanger the entire financial system. The legislation also would give shareholders an advisory say on executive compensation, increase transparency of credit-ratings agencies and set aside billions of dollars to aid unemployed homeowners.

Unsurprisingly no Republicans voted in favor and quite a few Democrats crossed over to join them in opposition. Mostly ConservaDems, but also Kucinich. I assume because he thought it wasn't strong enough. Or maybe because the completely reasonable cram down amendment was stripped from the bill.

Of course, now it has to survive the Senate, where Lord knows what awful slicing they'll do on any meaningful oversight. Nonetheless, Obama praised the bill and urged the Senate to move on it ASAP. He also had some hard words for the banksters and their pet lobbyists. And he responded to the critics that say the bill will "stifle innovation" rather firmly.

"Americans don't choose to be victimized by mysterious fees, changing terms and pages and pages of fine print. And while innovation should be encouraged, risky schemes that threaten our entire economy should not," he said. "We can't afford to let the same phony arguments and bad habits of Washington kill financial reform and leave American consumers and our economy vulnerable to another meltdown."

Which reminds me, I seem to be seeing some change in attitude in our president. Lately he seems to be shaking off that "can't we all get along" persona and is much more willing to call the obstructionists out. So there's that. [h/t John Cole]

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It's that time of year

The last couple of weeks of the year are always sort of slow for news. So the blog fights start up, but I'm staying out of those. And of course, the lists arrive. Best/Worst of Everything in 2009. Some of those I like.

Haven't made it through this one that Alan Colmes flagged this morning because it's on HuffPo and that site hangs up for me all the time now. But I made it through the first few and it looks worth a browse. 60+ of the funniest protest signs in 2009.

TPM has a Catalog of Fox News "mistakes".

The one thing I miss about living up north is the snow sculptures. I used to live for a good packing snow and my snow creatures were always well received and appreciated by the neighbors, but none of my creations came close to these 20 Awesome Snow Sculpture Themes.

Whiskey Ina gave me this link. She has some fun holiday stuff at her blog, so click her too, but this 1966 Holiday Promo for CBS made me smile. Those were gentler times, and it's interesting for all the griping about the stupid alleged war on Christmas, they said Happy Holidays...

And this is incredible. The world's smallest snowman. It's one fifth the width of a human hair. Obviously the photo is much enlarged.

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The Solution is So Obvious

When I posted my koan, it was because I saw the link to Palin's idiot op-ed at Memeorandum with at least four dozen posts under it already. I'm sure there were much more before the day was over. Now Greg Sargent informs us:

I’m told by the paper’s insiders that her piece was one of the most-read WaPo opinion pieces of the year, coming in 21st in page views out of literally hundreds of opinion articles. An earlier Palin Op ed in the paper on the same topic was the third most read of the year.

A lot of this is probably driven by heavy outside linkage. But still, the fact that Sarah Palin, of all people, is able to command such attention for her views on the science of climate change, of all things, is kind of amazing.

To be clear, I’m not defending the decision to run the piece. I wouldn’t have run it. I’m just pointing out the undeniable fact that the woman’s name gets people clicking. Until people stop clicking, Palin and her views will continue to get attention.

No Greg. It's not amazing at all. I've been griping about this for years. Sure mocking the stupidity is fun. Snark pulls in the hits to their own sites. But if bloggers, progressives, et. al, really want to marginalize the idiots, the only way to do it is treat them like any other troll on the internets. Freaking ignore them.

The only thing that linkfest to her op-ed did was encourage the WaPo and the other struggling MSM sites to keep publishing this crap to drive their traffic.

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Evacuate Helicopter Ben

Dan at Pruning Shears notes the bubble of resistance against reconfirming Ben Bernanke. He makes a pitch for Thomas Hoenig, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, suggesting Hoenig might have broader political appeal than Ben. He makes a good case for it. For instance:

Much more importantly, Hoenig appears to be less than impressed with officials’ response to the meltdown. Back in March he gave a speech titled “Too Big Has Failed” sharply criticizing the bailouts (more speeches are published here). While some details have changed since then, the overall picture has not. And while much of it seems unexceptional, it would sound downright revolutionary in the capitol...

As Dan notes, the odds do favor Bernanke’s reconfirmation but he's right that it doesn't hurt to be prepared with alternative candidates should the movement to oust him gain any real steam.

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Heated Debates

Catching up on saved links this morning before I get lost in the day's news. Octopus lays into the climate deniers with some irrefutable evidence. Not that it will change their closed minds, but it's good ammo for any arguments you might get into with them. And Hart debunks the "Climategate" shoutragers.

I missed the fifth anniversary of Gary Webb's suicide. It was a couple of days ago. I spent ten days with him in Mexico once as part of a group. He was a great journalist and what the tradmed did to him was a truly a crime. They killed him just as surely as if they had pulled the trigger themselves. Robert Parry remembers...

Not often I would send you to the National Review, but this post by Tim Lynch of Cato is well worth reading on the futility of the drug war. I have my disagreements with Cato too, but the war on some drugs is something we always agree on.

My dear friend Mark Bode passed on a link to this short biography of his dad, legendary 60s graphic artist Vaughn Bode. It's very intense reading. Brutally honest account of Vaughn's struggle to fit into society.

If you missed this Jon Stewart segment, it's a good one, on the dumbing down of Gretchen Carlson. Hard to believe smart people would sell their souls to Fox just for money.

I loved this photo essay of Hall of Fame toys. Out of the 44 listed, I've owned all but four of them in my lifetime.

There's supposed to ten of these best viral video ads of the last year. I only saw six at the post, but maybe it's my computer. They were entertaining in any event.

And I loved this skyscraper in China and loved the vegetal city even more. That one looked like something out of a fairy tale.

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Big Journalism 2010

It's been a really bad week in the major media. Print journalism as a profession choked out its last gasping breath when the creator of Politico was named to the Pulitzer Prize board a couple of days ago. Presumably because they're such "innovators" in "new media." Not that they didn't start out with great promise and still do deliver some occassional real news coverage, but it's been long since they decided their winning business model would be pure Drudge baiting. At this point, they're no more credible overall than Fox.

But that was just building the funeral pyre. Today, they lit the match when Neilson bought out Editor & Publisher's owners and closed E&P. I can understand shutting down the print version, but not getting why they shuttered the online edition. It's one of the few sites that I still read regularly and trust for news. I didn't know until today that they had been printing for well over 100 years but not surprised. They treated the news with a respect for facts and ethics that harked back to the days when journalism was a profession, rather than just a business.

Meanwhile on your teevee:

This morning, Gore appeared on MSNBC, where Andrea Mitchell read from Sarah Palin's Facebook page to ask the former vice president questions about climate change.

And John Cole tells me that later today, they were reading Sarah's insipid Twitter feed on air. This is our major media going into the next decade. Not exactly screaming reliable news source in my ear.

And I hear that Andrew Breitbart is launching a boatload of "vertical sites" to his winger Big Gov site and they're all named Big something...

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Building a Better Government

I've got a wicked bad head cold that has been totally kicking my butt for the last couple of days and our political discourse is so absurd at this point that I can barely bring myself to blog but this story is a bit cheering. For all the blame that Obama gets for not fixing things quickly enough, there's these little signs that at least under this administration, they're willing to try to contain costs and operate more efficiently.

The Office of Management and Budget launched the SAVE Award in September, an effort to solicit cost-savings ideas from rank-and-file federal employees. The agency received more than 38,000 submissions from workers, and the White House announced the four finalists Monday. The OMB is still calculating the total potential cost savings from each of the ideas.

The four finalists suggest using local banks, consolidating inspections, utilizing on-line resources for appointment setting and allowing vets to take home their unused medications from hospital stays at the VA. Small ideas, that translated over the system could save some big bucks. Apparently you can vote for your favorite at SAVEAward.gov and the winner gets to meet the President. However today is the last day of voting and it's likely all the finalists ideas will be implemented, so the taxpayer wins, no matter what.

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Celestial Wonder

Nobody seems to know what this was, but it's pretty eerie that it appeared over Norway just as Obama arrived to accept his prize and the world leaders are meeting in Copenhagen to discuss climate change.


There appears to be some consensus that it most likely may have been a failed test missile from a Russian submarine. I rather like the idea that it was a warning from some advanced civilization on another planet that we need to get our shit together as a species and start respecting this planet.

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Obama Accepts Peace Prize with War Speech

Okay, so let's stipulate up front that it is a little weird to give a peace prize to the president of a country actively involved in two ongoing military conficts. That being said, while a lot of people are sifting through the transcript, looking for the objectionable bits, I thought this part about the importance of diplomacy and the incremental nature of bringing about change was good.

Let me also say this: the promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach – and condemnation without discussion – can carry forward a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door.

...There is no simple formula here. But we must try as best we can to balance isolation and engagement; pressure and incentives, so that human rights and dignity are advanced over time.

And I liked this third point a lot. Wish more world leaders would recognize that economic security is an important component of any peace process.

Third, a just peace includes not only civil and political rights – it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.

I don't think that can be overstated. Looking at history, so much of what drives war seems to be a quest for material goods like land and control of natural resources, in order to ensure economic prosperity for the conquerors. I've always believed we could end wars if those who had more than they need were more willing to share their wealth with those who don't. I'm only sorry that the strategy going forward is still going to be bombs -- not bread. You can watch the video here.

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A Village Christmas

If you are wondering why traditional journalism sucks, as Oliver points out, it's all about the parties.


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Drug policy gets a little saner

I haven't linked to LEAP in a while because I've been rather pissed off at them for the way they treated one of their founding members, my pal Howard Wooldrige. He's no longer working for the group, but I suppose it's silly to hold a grudge forever and this really is good news for policy reformers.

* Washington, DC will finally be allowed to implement the medical marijuana initiative that voters overwhelmingly approved in 1998 but has been blocked by Congress each year since then.

* Funding for the White House "drug czar's" ad budget has been slashed by more than a third of its size last year. Studies have repeatedly shown that these ads actually cause teens to use more -- not fewer -- drugs.

* Washington, DC will be able to use federal funds to implement syringe exchange programs.

These are all issues we were fighting for six years ago when I was still very active in the movement. Glad to see some progress towards common sense in the approach to combating drug abuse and allowing sick people to use the natural herbal medicine of their choice.

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We all want to save the world...

Sorry but posting is likely to be a bit muddled today. I think I'm coming down with a head cold. I tired to post last night, but couldn't get past just reading the headlines on Memeorandum. Some 50+ stories and over 90% appeared to be either smug punditry, meaningless reports on process and personalities or pure gossip. Fortunately, this morning, I found this Andrew J. Bacevich piece on Afghanistan and warmongering in general. He's probably the only conservative really worth reading anymore and you should read the whole piece. But I'm just going to pull out this one bit, for quote of the day.

Averting a recurrence of that awful day does not require the semipermanent occupation and pacification of distant countries like Afghanistan. Rather, it requires that the United States erect and maintain robust defenses.

This is the key point that should be the foundation of our whole foreign policy. Too bad, that doesn't seem to be the case.

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Koan of the Day

If Sarah Palin wrote a really stupid op-ed and nobody commented on it - would it still exist?

Day trip

Driving down to the airport with my sister this afternoon to pick up my birth mother, who will be spending the holidays with us. I'll be back later. In the interim, I've been doing my Climategate blogging at Detroit News and I have a blogroll full of fabulous bloggers that you can peruse at your leisure on he sidebar.

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Love That Dirty Water

I often feel guilty because I buy gallons of spring water and 2 liter bottles of sparkle water for my personal consumption. I know it's bad for the environment to generate all those empties, but this eases my conscience a bit:

More than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data.

That law requires communities to deliver safe tap water to local residents. But since 2004, the water provided to more than 49 million people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage.

All these violations were reported to EPA and whatever regulators are appropriately notified and "shockingly" "fewer than 6 percent of the water systems that broke the law were ever fined or punished by state or federal officials."

Of course, we all know environmental regulatory enforcement was virtually ignored or even actively undermined under the Bush administration, but according to the article, all the people in charge who were appointed under Bush, still hold those positions.

I'm sure you recall when it was reported that Bush was loading the federal bureaucracy listed in the "Plum Book" six layers deep with his loyal GOP operatives. This is the hidden Bush legacy and partly why it's so much more difficult for the Obama administration to quickly repair the damage done by their predecessors.

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