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Flight 253 Threat: Spencer Ackerman, Pat Buchanan Duel Over Law Enforcement Reaction

On today's edition of "Morning Joe", Washington Independent reporter Spencer Ackerman took on MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan over the law enforcement response to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's crotchfire terror attack on NWA Flight 253.

The basic point of contention boiled down to Ackerman advocating for the sensible law enforcement and investigatory process that has successfully prosecuted terrorists by the score, and Buchanan suggesting that Abdulmutallab should have been carted off to some star chamber and tortured.

Unsurprisingly, it's Buchanan that basically comes off as a madman.

[WATCH]


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Парижский дизайнер Patrick Norguet обновил интерьер известной французкой гостиницы Sofitel, что в городе Леон. Вдохновением для дизайнера послужила многолетняя история местного шелкового производства.
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Mach schnell vit de art theengs, I have to get back to DanceCentrum in Stutgart to see Kraftwerk.

http://www.bestweekever.tv/2009-12-29/for-your-consideration-2009-the-year-in-film/

http://www.bestweekever.tv/?p=50052

Bestweekever.tv has taken a look back into the year of film, compiling the year’s movies with our trademarked “For Your Consideration” titles. Take a look through the below gallery, and tell us if you agree with our assessment in the comments. So, ladies and gentlemen, we present:

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: 2009, The Year In Film

(click on the first picture to begin)

TV for December 29, 2009

ABC
Rudolph's Shiny New Year @ 8pm (Movie)
Scrubs @ 9pm R
Better Off Ted @ 9:30pm
20/20 @ 10pm (Exploring the facts behind "The Blind Side," a 2009 movie about a well-to-do white Memphis couple who take in a poor black teen named Michael Oher, who blossoms into a football start. Oher, now an offensive tackle for the NFL's Baltimore Ravens, is interviewed, as are the couple who took him in, Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, and Bullock an McGraw.)
Jimmy Kimmel Live @ 12:05am (William Shatner, animal trainer Kristin McMillan, Jay Sean) R

NBC
Parks and Recreation @ 8pm R
Parks and Recreation @ 8:30pm R
Parks and Recreation @ 9pm R
Parks and Recreation @ 9:30pm R
Jay Leno Show @ 10pm (Penelope Cruz, Dolly Parton, Luc Robitaille) R
Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien @ 11:35pm (Jamie Foxx, Jason Alexander, Grizzly Bear) R
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon @ 12:35am (Fred Armisen, Carey Mulligan, Daniel Boulud) R
Last Call with Carson Daly @ 1:30am (Derek Luke, Anastasia Ashley, Black Lips) R

FOX
The Benchwarmers @ 8pm (Movie)

CBS
NCIS @ 8pm R
Kennedy Center Honors @ 9pm (Mel Brooks, Dave Brubeck, Grace Bumbry, Robert De Niro and Bruce Springsteen are the honorees at the 32nd annual celebration hosted by Caroline Kennedy. Performers and presenters include Meryl Streep; Martin Scorsese; Sting; Matthew Broderick; Aretha Franklin; John Mellencamp; Carl Reiner; Jon Stewart; Jennifer Nettles; Sharon Stone; Ben Still; Jack Black; Melissa Etheridge; Ben Harper; Herbie Hancock; Harvey Keitel; Jane Krakowski; Edward Norton; Martin Short; Frank Langella; Eddie Vedder.)
Late Show with David Letterman @ 11:35pm (Robin Williams, Ashley Greene) R
Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson @ 12:35am (Harry Connick Jr., Peter Sagal) R

CW
90210 @ 8pm R
Melrose Place @ 9pm R

DISCOVERY
Dirty Jobs @ 9pm
Ghost Lab @ 10pm

SCIENCE
Sci Fi Science @ 10pm

TLC
One Big Happy Family @ 9pm (The series premiere introduces the Coles family of four, who all weight more than 300 pounds, as they begin their journey to lose weight and improve their overall well-being.)
One Big Happy Family @ 9:30pm

DISCOVERY HEALTH
Make Room for Multiples @ 8pm (A Philadelphia couple prepare for the arrival of quadruplets in the opener of this documentary series, which follows multiple-birth families.)
Make Room for Multiples @ 8:30pm
I'm Pregnant And... @ 9:30pm

FOOD
Private Chefs of Beverly Hills @ 9pm (An unscripted series about an L.A.-based private-chef placement agency that caters to the most discriminating--and over-the-top--clientele.)

SYFY
ECW @ 10pm
Outer Space Astronauts @ 11pm

A&E
Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal @ 9pm
Paranormal State @ 10pm
Paranormal State @ 10:30pm

TRUTV
Disorder in the Court XI @ 10pm

BRAVO
Tabatha's Salon Takeover @ 10pm

E!
Chelsea Lately @ 11pm (Mary McCormack, John Caparulo, Greg Proops, Whitney Cummings)

MTV
Teen Mom @ 10pm

BET
Monica: Still Standing @ 10pm


( MORNING / AFTERNOON TV FOR WEDNESDAY 12/30/09 )

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/021287.html

Mother to bouncing daughter: No, you can not look in that window! Do you want to be a Peeping Tom?
Daughter: Let me see! Let me see!

--Redhook, Brooklyn

 
taken with my jobpro on the medium brightness, 2-4ft close up with no flash.

Third-grade photo captures Obama's grin



A former Manoa resident sent President Barack Obama an old photo of the two of them taken while they were third-grade classmates at Noelani Elementary School, requesting an autograph more than six months ago. He recently received the autographed picture back, as well as a personally signed thank-you note.

Scott Inoue, now a chiropractor in Stockton, Calif., said the small, black-and-white photo had been stashed away for almost 40 years at his childhood home in Manoa. For some reason, Inoue said, as he was growing up he always remembered that photo and wondered what became of "Barry."

The picture -- with the words "Scott & Barry 3rd grade 1969" scribbled at the bottom by Inoue's mother -- shows Obama almost a head taller than Inoue, with their arms around each other. Against a background of Christmas tree drawings, Obama is smiling more broadly than the shyer-looking Inoue.

"He was a lot taller than me; he towered above most of us. I don't know why I remember that photo, but maybe it's because he had one of those personalities. Possibly because he was the only African-American" in a school predominantly attended by Japanese, Inoue said.
( Read more )

by Tom Tomorrow



two parts under the cut.
( Read more... )

Fox News today found a new reason to criticize President Obama's speech on the attempted bombing of Flight 253: His use of the word "allegedly" to describe the suspected terrorist's actions was "Harvard Law School talking, that's not commander-in-chief talking."

On Fox and Friends today, Fox analyst Peter Johnson, Jr. and anchor Alisyn Camerota criticized the president's address yesterday on Flight 253.

Johnson said that he had some "concern" that "there was a detached reserved way in which he was speaking."

He continued: "I wanted a little bit more in terms of communicating to me that he was on it, that our government is all over it, and they're going to do the right thing in terms of protecting us."

Camerota agreed: "You rarely see him getting fired up, but in this instance the use of the term 'allegedly,' to your point, that's Harvard Law School talking, that's not commander-in-chief talking. So he needs to you know change his, some would say, rhetoric."

Here's the full clip:

To put things in perspective, Johnson recently got some attention for his rhetorical gem of a statement that Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) knows that "the true meaning of Christmas is that you don't destroy babies. You don't destroy children."

Camerota, for her part, once asked "If there is no federal money used to subsidize abortions for low-income women, doesn't that mean there will be more low-income babies?"

source

Who's running the TSA? No one, thanks to Sen. Jim DeMint

An attempt to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day would be all-consuming for the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration — if there were one.

The post remains vacant because Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., has held up President Barack Obama's nominee in opposition to the prospect of TSA workers joining a labor union.

As al Qaida claimed responsibility Monday for the thwarted attack and President Barack Obama made a public statement about it, Democrats urged DeMint to drop his objection and allow quick confirmation of nominee Erroll Southers, a counterterrorism expert, when the Senate reconvenes in three weeks.

Obama, speaking from Hawaii, where he and his family are vacationing, told Americans, "We will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable."

Obama warned anyone plotting against the U.S. from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia or elsewhere that he doesn't intend to rest at simply strengthening defense.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee announced a hearing to be set for next month to examine how Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian whose name was in a terrorism database, boarded a plane with explosive material.

"Why aren't airline passengers flying into the U.S. checked against the broadest terrorist database and why isn't whole body scanning technology that can detect explosives in wider use?" said committee chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent.

Meanwhile, Florida Republican Rep. John Mica said in a statement that the TSA had grown lost and bloated in bureaucracy and called for a review.

Mica also said Congress "must change the process by which TSA administrators serve. There has been no TSA administrator for nearly a year and the next one will be the fifth in eight years. Running a security agency with a revolving door is a recipe for failure."

Janet Napolitano, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, of which the TSA is part, made the rounds of morning television news programs on Monday, backing away from her initial stance that the system had worked in averting attack.

She told NBC that "our system did not work in this instance. No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way."
( Read more )

Financial Times: 50 faces that shaped a decade


( List and pics )

SOURCE 1, SOURCE 2

Lists, I love to hate them. Number 46 for the win, hehe.

http://french.about.com/b/2009/12/29/new-years-in-france.htm

As in most countries, New Year's calls for a big celebration in France. Learn about some French New Year's traditions and customs.
More: Holidays and Celebrations

Celebrate: New Year's in France originally appeared on About.com French Language on Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 at 12:00:00.

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I LOL'd so hard when I frst saw this.

In 2009 the US not only inaugurated its first black president - it also honoured the president who paved Barack Obama's way to the country's highest post.

Events across the nation marked the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth, celebrating a man widely seen as the greatest US president - the secular saint who redeemed America's original sin of slavery.

Mr Obama has been compared to Lincoln - the lanky junior politician from Illinois who captured the presidency on the strength of his oratory, proving that anyone can make to the White House.

But amid the commemorations, it is easy to forget that Lincoln - a civil-war president - never lacked for critics. Even in this anniversary year, there has been vigorous debate over his legacy.

One lingering source of controversy among historians is Lincoln's moderation on the slavery issue.

Harvard University's Donald Yacovone says complexities have been lost in celebrations that have focused on hero worship.

"A lot of it is superficial," Mr Yacovone told BBC News. "A lot of it is blind to real, not imagined faults that Lincoln represented."

( Read more... )

Via BBC.

http://dooce.com/daily-photo/2009/12/29/grandmommys-house-we-go

I got all gussied up for one of the family parties and had Katey document the rare occasion. You can see here that Marlo also approves of Mommy taking a shower.

click image above to see the photo on dooce.com

by dooce in Daily Photo

© Armstrong Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Originally published by Heather B. Armstrong for dooce.com as To Grandmommy's house we go. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.