Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Most of official D.C. is closed today. The Federal government is closed. The House of Representatives is out for the rest of the week -- and next week is recess. They'll be back in town on February 22nd. The Senate is scheduled to convene at 2:30 P.M. tomorrow. However, the Armed Services Committee website informs us that that tomorrow's hearing on Don't Ask, Don't Tell "IS CANCELLED AND WILL BE RESCHEDULED LATER."

The President, like many of us, works from home. He's holding one public meeting with African-American leaders on jobs and the economy. Expected attendees are: Dr. Dorothy I. Height, Chairwoman, National Council of Negro Women, Benjamin T. Jealous, President, NAACP, Marc H. Morial, President and CEO, National Urban League and Rev. Al Sharpton, President and Founder, National Action Network.

I'm going to take Petey out before the blizzard conditions really kick in, as we now have a "Blizzard Warning."

So, what's going on in the world today? Read More......

Scientists now looking at third hand smoke

If you are a smoker, what do you do? It's not that you don't already know the health risks and if you haven't quit, it's highly likely that it's because quitting is too difficult. Smokers probably already know that smoking around kids is bad, but now there may be one more concern to think about. Heading outside to smoke and away from kids sounds like the best option, but this new study suggests even that is not as good as previously thought. BBC:

Lingering residue from tobacco smoke which clings to upholstery, clothing and the skin releases cancer-causing agents, work in PNAS journal shows.

Berkeley scientists in the US ran lab tests and found "substantial levels" of toxins on smoke-exposed material.

They say while banishing smokers to outdoors cuts second-hand smoke, residues will follow them back inside and this "third-hand smoke" may harm.

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Farms in China even worse than factories

It shouldn't be much of a surprise after all of the scary problems related to food products that were exported abroad. Even in the US, farm runoff is a terrible problem. Anyone who lives near the Chesapeake is familiar with the chemical runoff problems including fewer fish and higher levels of cancer in the area. Claims that the Chinese pollution is near its peak is about as believable as the claims that the government is not triggering an economic bubble. The Guardian:

Farmers' fields are a bigger source of water contamination in China than factory effluent, the Chinese government revealed today in its first census on pollution.

Senior officials said the disclosure, after a two-year study involving 570,000 people, would require a partial realignment of environmental policy from smoke stacks to chicken coops, cow sheds and fruit orchards.

Despite the sharp upward revision of figures on rural contamination, the government suggested the country's pollution problem may be close to - or even past - a peak. That claim is likely to prompt scepticism among environmental groups.

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Just a beautiful video

My Argentine friend Patricia, who was a ballet dancer in another life, sent me this video of an 18 year old Argenine boy, Cristian Emanuel Amuchastegui, who recently won a ballet competition in Switzerland. It's kind of amazing to think that he's only 18. I get a kick out of the fact that the announcer gives his age in years AND months LOL

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House to hold hearings on Blue Cross 39% rate increase

Now THAT is what I'm talking about. These are the kind of things that show the American people the difference between having Democrats in power and Republicans in power. Read More......

Goldman link to Greek financial crisis?

Is it really surprising any more? What happens in 10 or 15 years when this "complex financial product" unravels? Where will the highly paid financial consultants be? You have to wonder if Goldman will always remain above the law or if they will continue to call the shots since they make the law. Der Spiegel:

But in the Greek case the US bankers devised a special kind of swap with fictional exchange rates. That enabled Greece to receive a far higher sum than the actual euro market value of 10 billion dollars or yen. In that way Goldman Sachs secretly arranged additional credit of up to $1 billion for the Greeks.

This credit disguised as a swap didn't show up in the Greek debt statistics. Eurostat's reporting rules don't comprehensively record transactions involving financial derivatives. "The Maastricht rules can be circumvented quite legally through swaps," says a German derivatives dealer.

In previous years, Italy used a similar trick to mask its true debt with the help of a different US bank. In 2002 the Greek deficit amounted to 1.2 percent of GDP. After Eurostat reviewed the data in September 2004, the ratio had to be revised up to 3.7 percent. According to today's records, it stands at 5.2 percent.

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American Airlines to charge for blankets

Well at least they can't control the temperature inside the plane, right? Besides being stuck with them as the only carrier nearby, why would anyone use that airline? The last flight I did with them was so bad that I swore I would never even consider American as an option. The interior was falling apart and they had ear sets for some passengers but not all passengers on the long flight to South America. Then again, not all of the passengers had working TV screens so it didn't even matter. It remains a mystery how they stay in business other than owning a few important routes. Read More......

ABC's new poll on partisanship

Americans aren't thrilled with Obama and the Dems, but they're far less thrilled with the GOP. And this is what usually happens when the desperate party goes negative. Usually it happens in campaigns, at the very end - the candidate who's losing throws a hail (Mary) of negatives at the frontrunner. Often it damages the frontrunner, but it just as often hurts the instigator even more. I think that's what we're seeing with the public in this poll. The GOP has done a good job of hurting Obama, but they haven't done a very good job of helping themselves in the process. Read More......

Like we miss Cholera

A billboard someone set up in Wyoming, Minnesota. Read More......

Enzi says Blagojevich. Hilarity ensues.

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So much for privacy and body scans

That didn't take long. Will everyone else be as amused?

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan isn't intimidated by the full body-scan machines that have been recently installed at London's airports - in fact, he's been signing off printouts of his X-rays.

Khan, appearing on 'Friday Night With Jonathan Ross' - one of British television's most popular weekend shows - revealed he's been turning the controversial security machines into a public relations opportunity at London's Heathrow airport.

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Follow us on Twitter

Joe and I are on Twitter, you can follow us via our various accounts:

@AMERICAblog - the RSS feed of the main blog
@AMERICAblogGay - the RSS feed of the gay blog
@aravosis - my personal rantings, usually about politics, but not always
@joesudbay - Joe's personal rantings, ditto

So, if you want to follow the blog itself, then subscribe to the blog feeds. If you want to see what Joe and I are personally tweeting, including retweets of your favorite bloggers and others around the Netroots and beyond, follow our personal feeds, which personally I find a lot more fun. We only tweet a small amount of our own blog posts in our personal feeds, so best to subscribe to all. Read More......

Gibbs just flashed crib sheet on palm at WH briefing, included 'eggs, milk, bread, hope and change.'

Seriously. He was referring to Sarah Palin's now-famous crib sheet she wrote on her hand. Read More......

Obama administration rips into Republicans for politicizing war on terror

Now this is what we like to see. Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan penned an op ed today about how Republicans are politicizing the war on terror. It included the following tidbit:

Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda. Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill.

He's right. And it's about time the White House hit back hard. But in the past, the White House has often gotten cold feet right after it hit Republicans hard. Here's to hoping they're relentless, and to hoping they have a larger plan for buttressing and reinforcing Brennan's comments with other surrogates. These kind of messages pack a punch, but only if delivered as part of a larger messaging strategy.

Interestingly, Brennan's comments parallel what Newsweek's Jonathan Alter said last week:

I think they're [Republicans] in a place now where they just want to hurt Obama. What they don't get - and I wish they would look into their souls a little bit - if they convey, over and over again, that the President of the United States is weak, what does that do? It emboldens the terrorists. And I don't say that lightly. Think of terrorists overseas, or at home, that might be plotting an attack - if they think that the President is weak, which he is not, he is manifestly not. He's killed twice as many of them, not to put too fine a point on it, with Predators as his predecessor did. He is not weak. But if they continue to convey that he is weak, that gives serious help to the terrorists.

I think the pressure should now be on these Republicans, aren't you helping the terrorists, by insisting, against all evidence - remember we have 100% conviction rate of terrorists in civilian courts in this country. 100%. It's not like any of them are out walking the streets, as we're told. The only detainees from Guantanamo who have been released and who have returned to terrorism in their home countries were released under President Bush. So far there has not been one case of that happening under President Obama. So, this line is a bunch of hooey, and they have to stop saying it, and the onus now has to be on them for why they're not harming us by continuing to do so.

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'Lift the ban' groups criticize latest Gillibrand move on DADT

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has taken the lead on the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell in the Senate. But it's not entirely clear that she's helping matters. Read More......