The Weekly Poll
Results
The 'Pelosi Problem...' Edition
The new year will begin with a new Speaker of the House (No doubt, 'Tan-boy' Boehner, R-Orange). Nancy Pelosi, the outgoing Speaker, has announced her intention of running for Minority Leader of House... Some Democratic Representatives think this is not such a good idea. Rep. Albio Sires (D-NY) said, "We need some new direction, and I think the best way is for her to move on."... Others support Pelosi, "I am confident that under her leadership we will never abandon our principles," said Rep. Robert E. Andrews (D-NJ).
Speaker Nancy Pelosi to seek minority leader post
A.) Pelosi should be Minority Leader...
B.) Pelosi should step aside...
C.) Get back to me after the holidays...
What say You? (And this is what you said...)
A.) Pelosi should be Minority Leader...
Richard McD simply voted A.
Adam in NoHo points out...
Anyone that rankles the GOP that much must be doing something right. She's the only one of a liberal/progressive nature that got anything substantial done in the past two years. It's Harry Reid that needs to step aside, although after beating Angle so decidedly, he's somehow seen as a strong leader...
maw qualifies...
Only if the Dems are serious about getting anything done.
Boston Jane states...
Pelosi should be House Minority Leader. She has stood by Democratic principles and fought the Rethugs fairly well. Though I wish she had been even stronger, her guidance will provide needed continuity. Maybe in two years she'll be Speaker again.
Margaret in MN avers...
I vote that Nancy Pelosi stay on as minority leader. Not only did Ms. Pelosi get hundreds of bills passed in the House, she was the only one of the 3 "leaders" (Obama, Reid & Pelosi) to show any willingness to fight. That, & the fact that she is female, accounts for all the vilification she received from the Party of No. Pelosi's leadership was not the problem for the Dems.
Marian in Missouri adamantly said...
Nancy Pelosi most definitely should be Minority Leader; she has gotten some very good legislature through; and she gets along with regular people; but repubs, not so much. If she were not a female, I doubt there would even be a discussion of this magnitude.
B.) Pelosi should step aside...
bebo pointedly remarks...
When someone is in a leadership position, that person should provide leadership. She is partly responsible for the 11/2 debacle. Pelosi should step aside & take Hoyer with her. (I agree)
C.) Get back to me after the holidays...
litebug decided...
I'm going with C. I want to see what happens in the short run and to think about it for awhile.
Paul of Seattle added his own category...
D) Irrelevant who is there.
The bitch and the boner will just steam roll "cave in" Obama to do what they want.
(Um... Er... Oh, never mind...)
~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, then, Poll-fans... The 'Ayes' have it... and from all reports I've seen since the Poll came out last week, Rep. Pelosi will be the Minority Leader. But, not without some reservations from within the caucus and a symbolic challenge from Heath Shuler (D-QB). As noted above, I agree with bebo that she should step aside and the 11/2 debacle is partially her fault. And I will say this for the record... My opinion has nothing to do with her being a woman... and much to do with the results that occurred on her watch. So, there it is...
Thanks to all! Yer the Best!
BadToTheBoneBob
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
roger ebert's journal: A meeting of solitudes
I had no idea. For days I've been reading waves of messages from the lonesome, the shy, the alone, the depressed. Some who live as virtual hermits. Some who have few or no friends. Some who rarely speak with their families. Some who have never dated, or ever had sex. Some who consider it a good day when they never speak to anyone. Some who are sad to be alone. Some who are relieved. Some who can't do it any other way.
Paul Krugman: The World as Obama Finds It (New York Times)
President Obama was not, it turns out, prepared to deal with the world he faced when he took office. And it still seems as if he isn't.
FRANK RICH: Who Will Stand Up to the Superrich? (New York Times)
The issue is whether the country can afford the damage being done by the ever-growing income inequality between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else.
The Lost Art of Argument (Wall Street Journal)
Critic Lee Siegel bemoans the fall of the polemic.
David Sirota: The High Cost of Low Price (Creators Syndicate)
First, it was the new $200 printer - within hours of being extracted from its bubble-wrap womb, the contraption started making an awful wheezing sound.
Can You Get Genius Results With Just Hard Work? (Wall Street Journal)
Terry Teachout asks: Is genius a simple matter of hard work? Not a chance, he says.
This column will change your life: Watch out for superachievers (The Guardian)
They could wear you out, warns Oliver Burkeman.
"Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney" by Howard Sounes: A review by Carl Rollyson
Like other works of art, biographies have provenance. Each comes with a history that has to be understood in order to judge the authenticity of its account. How did this book originate? What is its chain of evidence? In the case of unauthorized biographies -- which appear without the blessing and, perhaps, with the curse of their subjects -- the author must be upfront about his sources and the potential limitations of his working methods.
Julia Keller: "Big meanies: On the writing of negative reviews" (Chicago Tribune)
Everything I believe about the art of criticism, give or take a few aphorisms and a stray platitude or two, I learned in the course of an elevator ride in the summer of 1997 in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Pasadena, Calif.
Roger Ebert: The Answer Man
Q. Why is the street always wet in nighttime scenes in movies? I noticed this probably 25 years ago, and never knew who to ask. (Justin Ritter)
A. Because dry streets don't photograph. Films use fire hoses to wet them. The streets are often wet in night scenes even in films set in desert climates.
'You don't have to understand everything': Apichatpong Weerasethakul (The Guardian)
Apichatpong Weerasethakul's surreal new film was this year's surprise Palme D'Or winner. The Thai auteur talks to Steve Rose about never playing it straight.
Dennis Lim: "A Second Look: 'The Night of the Hunter'" (Los Angeles Times)
The only film directed by Charles Laughton gets the deluxe Criterion treatment.
David Bruce has 39 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $39 you can buy 9,750 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," and "Maximum Cool."
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responded:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Contribution
Melvina Mantis
Marty:
Here are pics of our pet mantis Melvina. The first one of her on my hand, and the other of her creating her egg sac on our plant. It was the first time I'd ever seen one making her egg sac. Fascinating. Mantids can live up to 14 months in captivity. She's keeping down our cricket population and is quite entertaining.
Reader Suggestion
"Random Acts of Culture"
Hi Marty,
The news has been such a downer lately with the elections and all - splitting people apart. Then, I came across this offering. It sort of takes your breath away when you hear it in all its glory. It's from Macy's in Philly... "Random Acts of Culture."
'Flash opera' at Macy's | Philly | 11/01/2010
Sally P :)
Thanks, Sally!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still sunny and warmer than seasonal.
Suspension Gives Ratings Bump
Keith Olbermann
A suspension is proving good business for MSNBC and Keith Olbermann - at least in the short term.
The size of the combative liberal host's audience shot up in the days after his return from a two-day suspension for donating to three Democratic candidates. The Nielsen Co. said Olbermann's show reached 1.3 million viewers the first three days after his return last week, up from the 1.08 million he averaged in October.
His first day back, on Tuesday, Olbermann reached 1.5 million people, Nielsen said.
Olbermann's suspension, and subsequent non-apology to NBC News, has caused backstage controversy at the network. MSNBC chief executive Phil Griffin threatened to fire Olbermann if he went ahead with a threat to talk about the issue on ABC's "Good Morning America," the website The Daily Beast reported Monday. An MSNBC spokesman said the network had no comment on the story.
Keith Olbermann
"Hangover 2" Cameo
Bill Clinton
Maybe he reckons that if it was good enough for Arnold $chwarzenegger, it is good enough for Bill Clinton.
The former U.S. president is reported to have put in a cameo appearance in the upcoming comedy movie, "The Hangover 2," a sequel to last year's hit about a group of men who wake up after a bachelor party in Las Vegas with no memory of the previous night's wild events.
The sequel is currently shooting in Bangkok, Thailand and scheduled for release next year, and on Monday People magazine, citing an unnamed Clinton source, reported that the movie's makers had the ex-president appear in front of their cameras.
Clinton will play himself, but no other details were reported by People, which said Clinton was in Bangkok because he was making a speech on clean energy.
Bill Clinton
Wall To Wall Comedy On Thursdays
NBC
Struggling network NBC on Monday announced an all-comedy block of programs for Thursdays in an apparent bid to recapture its heyday as the leading source of laughs when it aired "must-see TV" in the 1990s on that same night.
Starting January 20, NBC said it would feature three hours of "wall to wall comedy" in prime time on Thursday nights, including the 10 pm slot usually reserved for scripted drama.
New romantic comedy "Perfect Couples" will join "Community", "The Office" and "Parks and Recreation". Emmy-winning comedy "30 Rock" moves to 10 pm and the new series "Outsourced" will conclude the block at 10:30 pm.
NBC is currently battling Fox for third place in total viewers this TV season after ending at the bottom of the four leading U.S. networks for several years.
NBC
Gospel Hall of Fame
Johnny Cash
The late Johnny Cash is among four new inductees into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
DeGarmo & Key, the Golden Gate Quartet and Bill "Hoss" Allen also will be inducted on Jan. 24 in Hendersonville, Tenn.
Cash was raised on gospel music and famously turned to religion and Christian music midway through his career in search of a way to beat his problems with addiction.
This year's inductees come from very different backgrounds. Rock band DeGarmo & Key was the first Christian act to air a video on MTV. The Golden Gate Quartet introduced jazz to gospel. Allen helped take the sound of gospel to the nation as an influential DJ on WLAC out of Nashville.
Johnny Cash
NY Judge Nixes 'Wall Street' Suit
Diandra Douglas
Michael Douglas' ex-wife has lost a bid to cash in on his earnings from his recent "Wall Street" follow-up, with a judge saying her case is too much of a Hollywood divorce to set a sequel in a New York court.
A Manhattan judge dismissed Diandra Douglas' lawsuit against the Academy Award-winning actor in a ruling made public Monday. The judge said the dispute doesn't belong in a New York court because the former couple's complex, multimillion-dollar divorce agreement was hashed out in Santa Barbara, Calif.
"After balancing all competing interests and factors, the California court is the more convenient forum for this matter to be tried," state Supreme Court Justice Matthew F. Cooper wrote.
Michael Douglas was "very happy" with the New York lawsuit ruling, his lawyer, Marilyn B. Chinitz, said Monday. While it stuck to the question of where the case belongs, not who should win, Chinitz said she was confident the actor would prevail if his ex pursues it further. The couple divorced in 2000 after 23 years together.
Diandra Douglas
Brothers Convicted
Platinum Jet
An investigation born of a fiery plane crash at a small New Jersey airport nearly six years ago culminated Monday in convictions for two brothers accused of skirting safety regulations as they ran a charter jet company that catered to the rich and famous.
A federal jury took nearly four days of deliberations to convict Michael and Paul Brassington of fraud conspiracy in their operation of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Platinum Jet Management between 2002 and 2005. Paul Brassington faces up to five years in prison, while his brother could get 20 or more.
The Brassingtons, natives of Guyana, founded Platinum in 2002 and eventually boasted a client list that included Luciano Pavarotti, Duran Duran, Keith Richards, Snoop Dogg, film producer Harvey Weinstein and Jay-Z. Some paid as much as $85,000 per flight.
It emerged during the trial that Jay-Z and then-girlfriend Beyonce flew from Las Vegas to Teterboro on Feb. 1, 2005, on the same Bombardier Challenger jet that crashed the next day en route to Chicago.
During the monthlong trial, prosecutors painted a picture of a company that routinely violated Federal Aviation Administration rules by, among other things, running commercial charter flights without the proper certification.
Platinum Jet
Argues For New Trial
Wesley Snipes
Federal attorneys have asked a central Florida judge to revoke Wesley Snipes' bond if the actor is not granted a new trial for tax evasion.
Snipes did not attend the hearing Monday in a federal court in Ocala. His attorneys say he deserves a new trial because of jury bias in his 2008 conviction. They say two jurors are now accusing other jurors of deciding the case without hearing evidence. They also say prosecutors hid damaging information about a key witness.
Federal prosecutors on Monday said questioning those jurors about their deliberations would violate juror rules and intimidate future juries.
The star of the "Blade" trilogy faces a three-year prison sentence. Snipes has been free on bond while appealing.
Wesley Snipes
Mohammad Cartoonist
Kurt Westergaard
A Danish cartoonist at the center of a crisis in 2006 that set off riots in the Muslim world dislikes the profile the incident gave him and would prefer to return to his old identity as an ordinary artist.
Kurt Westergaard's cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb sparked outrage across the Muslim world and the artist said it took on a life of its own.
"It travels around the world and is used and misused and the cartoon gets a status as an icon, as I do sometimes, and I am not so happy about that."
"I'd want back my good old identity as an average, reliable cartoonist that pretty much never missed a deadline," Westergaard told a news conference Monday to coincide with the launch of his autobiography.
Kurt Westergaard
Rejects Jibes
Bristol Palin
Bristol Palin on Monday hit back at suggestions that she has reached the semifinals of "Dancing with the Stars" only because of her mother Sarah's popularity with voters.
Palin, 20, will dance the waltz and the paso doble on Monday for a chance at one of three places in the finals. Despite receiving the lowest scores from the contest's three judges for several weeks, the young, single mom has been kept in the competition by the votes of viewers.
Bristol Palin said she had reached the semi-finals through hard work and viewers could see she was improving every week. "I work my butt off," she told E! News in a separate interview. "I can't believe it's been three months already. I'm pretty confident now."
Bristol Palin
Online Viewers
TV
The Pay TV industry has heatedly debated this fall whether consumers are dropping their cable or other TV subscriptions to watch more TV content online. A new study by Nielsen, commissioned by the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, argues that most people who watch at least some content from the Web on their TV sets are "cord keepers" rather than "cord cutters."
The study, called "Life is a Stream," surveyed 769 people 18-49, and used eight focus groups to explore the viewing habits of consumers who watch at least some TV shows and movies from the Internet on their TV sets. That group makes up about 11 percent of the U.S. population, according to the study's authors.
One key finding of the survey, which will be unveiled this week: 84 percent of such viewers reported that they are watching the same amount, or more, regularly scheduled TV since they started streaming or downloading content to watch on their TV set. Importantly for TV distributors, 92 percent of these entertainment enthusiasts subscribe to a pay TV service, with only 3 percent reporting plans to give up their subscription.
Plus, more than half -- 53 percent -- said they have discovered shows by viewing them via the Internet first and then sought them out on regularly scheduled TV.
TV
New Job
Steven Slater
Steven Slater will put his vast experience of memorable air flights to use after signing a deal to judge travelers' 'craziest' stories.
The former JetBlue flight attendant will represent the "Mile High Text Club" contest which invites travelers to text in their most outrageous stories.
The deal is with the company behind a mobile communication application, Line2, which allows inflight texting on Wi-Fi equipped planes.
Peter Sisson, CEO of Toktumi, the company behind the application, called Slater "a perfect judge for a contest concerning the current state of air travel.
Steven Slater
Only 3 Nominees
Animated Oscar
Only three nominees will be in the running for best animated feature film at this year's Academy Awards.
Oscar organizers announced Monday that 15 animated features have been accepted for consideration, one short of the minimum 16 needed to expand the category to five nominees.
Among the films accepted for consideration are "Toy Story 3," which was the year's top-grossing movie, along with fellow hits "How to Train Your Dragon," "Despicable Me," "Shrek Forever After" and "Megamind."
Four films have yet to hit Los Angeles theaters to qualify for this year's Oscars: "Tangled," "The Illusionist," "The Dreams of Jinsha" and "Summer Wars."
Animated Oscar
Danish Astronomer Exhumed
Tycho Brahe
Astronomer Tycho Brahe uncovered some of the mysteries of the universe in the 16th century - and now modern-day scientists are delving into the mystery of his sudden death.
On Monday, an international team of scientists opened his tomb in the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn near Prague's Old Town Square, where Brahe has been buried since 1601. After eight hours of work, they lifted from the tomb a tin box like a child's coffin in which Brahe's remains were placed after the only previous exhumation, in 1901.
It has been long thought that he died of a bladder infection: Legend said it was the result of his reluctance to breach court etiquette during a reception by leaving for a toilet. Kidney disease was another suspect.
But tests conducted in 1996 in Sweden, and later in Denmark, on samples of his mustache and hair obtained in the 1901 exhumation, showed unusually high levels of mercury. That led to a theory of mercury poisoning - even, possibly, murder.
Scientists are interested in Brahe's skull, as well. The astronomer had part of his nose sliced off in a 1566 duel with a fellow nobleman as a student in the German city of Rostock, and the missing piece was replaced by a metal plate.
Tycho Brahe
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