The True Meaning of Christmas

By @KYYellowDog

Look again.  It's not what you think.

h/t PZMyers.


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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheyGaveUsARepublic-FrontPage/~3/2kEMPZOsi00/the-t
rue-meaning-of-christmas

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Bill O'Reilly hits guy with umbrella for asking
him questions

I've got nothing much to say about this, so here's a video of Bill O'Reilly getting confronted on the street, hitting the guy with an umbrella and then demanding the police arrest the guy for asking him questions.

Bill is the king of sending camera crews to people's houses to ambush them about stuff he doesn't like. But he's also among the most thin-skinned of any person in politics?he's famous for it, at this point. And given some of the other contenders, that is saying something.

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http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/x8QH53VoveQ/-Bill-OReilly-hits-guy
-with-umbrella-for-asking-him questions

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Gregory Jaczko Has a Cold

Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, made some comments to the press earlier this week. Jaczko, it seems, is worried. He believes, as noted in an Associated Press story, that "U.S. nuclear plant operators have[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/q_EUyg6vCs8/

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Is Christiane Amanpour on Her Way Out of This
Week

Amanpour speaks to Harvard Class Day, 2010\

When the announcement was made that ABC News was placing Christiane Amanpour in the anchor's seat for their Sunday news show, This Week, I was fairly optimistic. I thought placing someone who was female and had focused primarily on global outlooks would put a fresh and interesting perspective on the news of the day.

However, I completely underestimated the power of the Village to demand conformity. Amanpour's interviews got less and less journalistic as the time wore on, her questions barely anything more than a set up to allow invited politicians to spew forth whatever talking point they wanted. And far too often, those invited politicians reflected just one side of the debate, though I don't know how much blame for that lies with Amanpour. The fact remains that Amanpour was simply a potential that was never fully realized, because her real power lay with being an outsider and that wasn't going to stand with the arbiters of the Inside the Beltway mentality.

It would appear the confines of acceptable Village speak is wearing on Amanpour and it looks like she's ready to jump ship:

Christiane Amanpour may soon be giving up the anchor chair on ABC News? ?This Week.? Sources say network honchos are mulling who might replace the award-winning journalist, who has struggled in the ratings since she jumped from CNN to take the reins of the public affairs show in August 2010. [..]

Sources said she?s been ?miserable? at ABC and clashed with network executives. Other sources say the DC bureau never warmed up to Amanpour, who was seen as an outsider, commuting to Washington every week to host the show.

Jake Tapper--among others--have been named as possible replacements, including former host George Stephanopoulos pulling double duty with his Good Morning America anchor job. After six years on the job of monitoring these Sunday shows, I actually would be okay with Tapper getting the permanent seat, rather than as substitute host. Unlike other anchors, he's actually fairly approachable and was the first person to coordinate fact-checking with his show.

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/christiane-amanpour-her-way-out-week

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The Big Two Political Conventions and Occupy

In the greater Occupy world, there’s uncertainty verging on ambivalence toward the idea of protesting either the DNC in Charlotte or the Republican National Convention taking place in Tampa. Some activists admitted that they did not know when the[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/taylormarshcom/~3/NzrKsmLSA68/

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The Washington revolving door helped write
SOPA/PIPA

This should not come as a surprise to anyone. The convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff recently talked to 60 Minutes about how the system was easy to game, including offering jobs to staffers who wanted to cash in. What's unfortunate about this revolving door is that it's so deeply ingrained in the system and both parties are deeply guilty of doing it.

Whether it's senior White House officials leaving for big money on Wall Street, senior GOP Senators moving to Wall Street, GOP regulators moving to work for companies that they were supposed to be regulating, Wall Street bigwigs moving into the White House, FDIC officials shifting over to work on Wall Street or senior officials inside the Pentagon "retiring" into high paying jobs with defense contractors, the system is rigged and the ruling class can't lose.

It's hard not to agree with the new Abramoff who said if we want to shut down corruption, the revolving door has to be closed permanently. Instead of spinning cycles on small corruption and small wastes of money Washington needs to look at the much bigger and more costly problem of corruption among the political class. Everything else, while important, pales in comparison to the costs of this insider corruption. It needs to change.

More on the SOPA/PIPA revolving door corruption story by TechDirt.

Two high level Congressional staffers who have been instrumental in creating or moving forward both PROTECT IP (PIPA) and SOPA have left their jobs on Capitol Hill and taken jobs with two of the biggest entertainment industry lobbyists, who are working very hard to convince Congress to pass the legislation they just helped write. And people wonder why the American public looks on DC as being corrupt.

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Americablog/~3/PkHoaBuFgRM/washington-revolving-do
or-helped-write.html

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Supreme Court Stays New Texas Congressional Map
Pending Review

Texas’ roller-coaster redistricting adventure took another turn late last night as the Supreme Court agreed to review the most recent map’s constitutionality and block its implementation in the meantime. After the DC Circuit Court struck down the Texas legislature’s original map for discriminating against minorities, a three-judge panel released a new map late last month that would have created four additional minority-friendly districts. Now, that map will be reviewed by the Supreme Court, with a hearing set for January 9. SCOTUS Blog says the move “raises the strong possibility of a major new ruling on the power of federal judges to draw up redistricting plans while a state legislature?s own maps are under challenge in court.”

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/12/10/386947/supreme-court-texas-redistrict
ing-map/

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Deal or No Deal Live-Blogging Durban: Final Hours
Turn into a Full Day of Extended Negotiation

Update

8:55: Venezuela and Bolivia are upset about the EU proposal for Kyoto, saying that there’s nothing new on the table. Papua New Guinea asks for a more civil tone to the debate and says it supports the new Kyoto text.

Granada warns about moving backward: “We cannot regress.”

Columbia: “let’s go to a place where we can see the inter-linkages.”

Venezuela: “How do we come to this upside down world…in which…the pledges on the table are not enough. We would like to see this weak regime to go beyond 2020.”

Update

8:30 pm: We’re on another 10 minute break in the plenary directly after taking a 15 minute break. After leaving the hall, I’m charging my computer next to the live piano player. The person next to me says: “This reminds me of that scene in Titanic when the ship is sinking and the captain tells the orchestra to continue playing to calm the passengers down.”

Just seen on twitter from BBC environment correspondent Richard Black:

Heard in corridor #cop17 – ‘they are supposed to be saving the planet and they can’t even run a meeting…’

Update

7:45: The plenary has finally started to discuss the new Kyoto Protocol text. Parties are discussing whether they should extend Kyoto only another five years, or all the way to 2020. You can see the text here, and watch negotiations here.

Update

6:50 pm: Opening of the plenary lasted about 5 minutes. You can watch the upcoming negotiations here. A statement from South Africa’s Minister of Foreign Relations Nkoana-Mashabane: “We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good….The world is watching.”

They promised the documents would be coming as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, outside the Ministerial meeting, a European Diplomat leaving the meeting: “Nobody wants to close anything until they close everything. The way this is going, yes” we will be here all night.

Update

5:40 pm: Chief U.S. diplomat Todd Stern just left the negotiating room. A few reporters went up to ask questions, thinking that something had happened. Turns out, he was just going to the bathroom.

People are still sitting, standing, pacing around the convention center ? anxiously waiting for diplomats to strike a deal. No major news to report, other than the meeting hasn’t blown up yet.

We heard constant back and forth speculation that parties were calling for an extension of the COP 17 meeting. But we’re now hearing that we could be closing in on some sort of compromise that includes a legal instrument for future international targets. Please note: that is unconfirmed. Speculation is running wild here.

There’s an informal ministerial meeting currently underway. An open plenary is supposedly planned for 6.

The best outcome, of course, would be an agreement by China to commit to negotiations for a legal framework or for binding targets. That would bring the U.S. on board, which has held out until developing countries like India and China consider emission reduction targets. If that were the case, it would also encourage the Europeans to support an extension of the Kyoto Protocol — they said they’d only agree to a Kyoto extension if a roadmap toward a binding treaty were formed.

There are many balls still in the air. Will we we catch them? Or let them fall to the ground?

Update

3:30 pm: A coalition of youth from the political-action organization Avaaz are outside the conference hall chanting “don’t block the talks” ? referencing the U.S., which they have hammered on throughout the negotiations.

Kudos to Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones for providing the picture via twitter. She clearly has a better cell phone camera.

Update

2:50 pm: Things could get very tricky in the final hours of negotiations. Some ministers have already left. Others are trying to re-book flights at the last minute. I’ve overheard from a couple people ? including Samantha Smith of WWF International quoted below ? that ministers from developing countries are finding it difficult and cost-prohibitive to re-book flights.

There’s an informal ministerial meeting scheduled for 5 pm, which leaves very little time to get through all of the major priorities at hand.

Update

2:20 pm: In the oddest moment of the day, a fake negotiating text was sent around to delegates this morning, burning up the last remaining hours of negotiating time during today’s emergency negotiations. No one is quite sure if it was a mistake, or an attempt to sabotage the talks.

Rumors have been floating around all morning, but no one could verify that there was actually a fake text. Fiona Harvey and John Vidal of the Guardian were able to actually get their hands on the text:

If the text was a forgery, it was a poor one: it was headed with the wrong date (Friday 10 December, instead of Saturday 10 December) and was printed in the wrong typeface (Arial, instead of Times New Roman) for an official document.

The president of the conference, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, was forced to issue an official denial of the text, but only after the bizarre episode had wasted valuable time.

Update

1:20: Workers begin disassembling the conference center to prepare for the next event before any agreement at COP has been reached. Will we get kicked out before something happens?

Update

12:48 pm: Samantha Smith, Leader of the Global Climate and Energy Initiative for WWF International, thinks we’ll leave Durban “with some of the keys unresolved and not very strong text.” Rumors of an extended meeting of COP 17 have been floating around since last night, but are still unconfirmed.

“You can lead them to water, but you can’t make them drink,” says Smith.

Meanwhile, ministers from various countries are reportedly trickling out of the conference hall, leaving for home.

Update

12:30 pm: Jake Schmidt, international policy director for NRDC, sums up the mood at COP right now: “Everything is fuzzy at this point. We are close to a good move forward, but some key countries are still blocking. A deal has to be reached quickly or the talks in Durban could crater.”

Update

12:05 pm: best tweet yet from today:

Update

11:50 am: New text from for the Long-term Cooperative Action track has been released. It outlines a general agreement to “work towards identifying a global goal for substantially reducing emissions by 2050″ that will be considered at the 18th session. In other words, they are working on creating a new track to establish any new mitigation targets. We call this the ad hoc working group “to be named later.” Also, no agreement on financing for REDD. It’s already approaching noon, so the window for hashing out the substance of the document is closing.

Update

10:20 am: The plenary session has been delayed, with no schedule and no new text released as of yet. This likely means that the negotiators are hashing out details in hopes that they can go into the plenary ready to make a grand bargain.

9:30 am: Negotiators were meeting until after 5 am Durban time this morning. Late last night, new text came out for the Green Climate Fund and the Kyoto Protocol. These are still being worked out. Also being considered is the possibly of a framework for starting negotiations on emissions targets ? whether “legally binding,” a looser “legal framework” or a new protocol. The talks have spilled over for an open, high-level session Saturday, and will likely go all day.

The next high-level plenary was set to start at 10 am Durban time, and we’re expecting 5-6 hours of session. Some are speculating whether the parties will be able to agree on text before the end of the day.

Many are concerned that the meeting could blow up, or we could simply run out of time. If the U.S. doesn’t agree to a process that ends in a new binding agreement, the Europeans may pull out of Kyoto. If that happens, developing countries could block some of the other important frameworks like the Green Climate Fund (which is now mostly agreed to). Anything could happen at this point.

For an overview of how things may play out, check out Andrew Light’s analysis from last night. Not much has changed since.

If you want to read any of the new text, you can find it on the right-hand column of the UNFCCC page. If you want to watch the plenary online, you can find it here (Baobab).

 

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/12/10/386824/durban-updates-final-hours-of-neg
otiation/

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WEEKEND REPORT

I think this weekend’s report is probably one of the most important reports I’ve written for gold traders and investors as to what I think is in store the next couple of months.

I’m going to make the report available over the weekend for $1. Actually you will have access to the entire site for the next two days for the price of one George Washington. You can either keep your subscription and it will convert to a monthly on Monday morning or cancel it Sunday night and you won’t be charged another dime. Either way you will get access to a report that I think is important for every gold investor to read.

If you decide to cancel . . . → Read More: WEEKEND REPORT

Read The Full Article:
http://jutiagroup.com/20111210-weekend-report/

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Saturday hate mail-a-palooza: Ho ho ho!

Merry fucking Christmas! Unless you're a LIEberal, or Jewish, or not as white as me, then FUCK YOU!Ah yes, the holiday season, time to be merry, joyful, peaceful, and a raging asshole! Lots of holiday cheer below the fold!

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http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/qbL54wfc_ic/-Saturday-hate-mail-a-
palooza:-Ho-ho-ho!

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