The Watering Hole: May 13 – The Table Knife

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This date  in  1637 is the date of tradition for the invention of the table knife by Cardinal Richelieu; reputedly to cure dinner guests of the unsavoury habit of picking their teeth with their knife-points.

Americans invented Steak Knives to counter this imposition!

This is our open thread. Please feel free to offer your own comments on this or any other topic.

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25 thoughts on “The Watering Hole: May 13 – The Table Knife”

    • I can’t just stay up any longer. I am so tired I can hardly see the screen. I guess I call it quits and come back tomorrow. See ya.

  2. G’nite EV,
    Tomorrow is Friday, everybody will be more excited for the weekend, I hope.

  3. 4 Big Banks Score Perfect 61-Day Run

    It is the Wall Street equivalent of a perfect game of baseball — 27 up, 27 down, the final score measured in millions of dollars a day.

    Despite the running unease in world markets, four giants of American finance managed to make money from trading every single day during the first three months of the year.

    Their remarkable 61-day streak is one for the record books. Perfect trading quarters on Wall Street are about as rare as perfect games in Major League Baseball. On Sunday, Dallas Braden of the Oakland Athletics pitched what was only the 19th perfect game in baseball history.

    But Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase & Company produced the equivalent of a trio of perfect games during the first quarter. Each one finished the period without losing money for even one day.

    ‘Too big to fail’ has now become ‘too big to lose’, and also, ‘too big to trust’. Only they know which way the market is going to move, because they are the ones doing the moving!

  4. Poll: Sestak Leads Specter By Nine Points

    The numbers: Sestak 49%, Specter 40% — the largest lead for Sestak that has been recorded in any publicly released poll. The survey of likely Dem primary voters has a ±4.9% margin of error.

    From the pollster’s analysis: “A heavy minority vote could make a difference for Specter. Sestak won white voters 51 percent to 37 percent but trailed among minority voters, where Specter led 52 percent to 37 percent. Sestak carried union households by a wide margin, 60 percent to 36 percent”

    I guess the minority voters remember Obama’s endorsement of Specter, way back last September.

  5. Can The Democratic Party Save Arlen Specter In Tuesday’s Primary?

    As Greg Sargent reports, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is now putting money into the race, helping to pay for Specter’s new ad featuring footage of President Obama. As Greg points out: “national party money is being spent to prop up an incumbent who was a Republican for most of his career — and to help him defeat a longtime Democrat.”

    In a year when there is significant anti-incumbent backlash, it’s not clear having the party apparatus behind him will deliver the votes specter needs. Political science professor Terry Madonna of Franklin & Marshall College told TPMDC that at this point the race is a genuine toss-up, though the momentum has clearly been with Sestak. For Specter to blunt Sestak’s surge, Madonna said, he will need the Democratic machine to get out the vote in Philadelphia.

    “On another level, what will the party and union endorsements mean?” Madonna asked. “He has the entire infrastructure of the party at the top level in his camp. He’s got the party and the unions. Will they deliver? At the voter level, at the grassroots level, is where I’m not convinced he can move them.”

    The party’s endorsement means supporting a corporatist, regardless of label. The union endorsement is from the top. Sestak is carrying the rank and file 60% to 36% in the poll above. Also in that poll, notice the Specter line is flat all the way across. It is Sestak that is winning the undecided voters, and that appeal should carry over into the general election, too. There is absolutely no question that Specter represents the past, when he was a Republican. Sestak is part of the future of the Democratic party. Pennsylvania Democrats supporting Specter should realize that before Tuesday.

    • Why would they bother with Specter? He can barely even think straight anymore. We need fresh Dem blood in the Senate, not the same old crackpot. Specter is not a reliable Dem vote, especially if he wins the election. Surely the Dem party must know this?

  6. Imagine how reliable he’ll be as a lame duck, if Sestak wins on Tuesday. May to January is an awfully long time!

  7. Hey folks.

    So there seem to be some concern that the flow from the oil spill is much higher than previously believed.

    BP has a pat response: We’re focused on stopping it, so the amount is irrelevant. They also dismiss efforts for experts to estimate the flow based upon the limited amount of footage BP has released.

    This is starting smell. BP controls the footage, which can be used to estimate the flow. They’re dismissive of efforts to estimate the flow. They’re dismissive of any concern of the flow. And they’re the ones who will suffer permanent PR damage if the amount exceeds the iconic Exxon Valdez disaster.

    NPR was reporting that two scientists they had review the footage said it’s spilling way more than the 5000 barrels per day; and put the estimates from 20,000 to anywhere upwards of 100,000 barrels per day. They say more footage will help refine the estimates. But BP is being stingy with the footage. One wonders why.

    I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but this isn’t quite along those lines. This feels more like “damage control” in terms of public image. And big corporations are all about that sort of thing.

    Thanks for letting me rant.

    • zxbe, you can rant all you like. :)

      I was looking at the video last night on Keith & Rachel, and I’m wondering what the white-ish stuff is that’s coming out with the oil. Gas?

  8. “.The two candidates [Arlen Specter and Blanche Lincoln] backed by the Dem establishment, both of whom were thought to be sure things only weeks ago, are now in trouble.”–Greg Sargeant

    Of course opinions solidify the closer to the election it is.
    Was the Dem establishment really “backing” these two because they were “sure things” ?

    Surely no more than they’d “back” any other incumbent who hadn’t been caught in an inconvenient scandal. Sergeant makes it sound like these two are counting on DNC help—he’s trying to make these races more exciting than they really are.

    Regular Republicans ‘betrayed’ by Specter won’t vote for him, the Teabaggers won’t vote for him and any Dem worth their salt won’t vote for him either.

    Blanche Lincoln is the one to watch and if she loses the primary it won’t be because of some general “anti-incumbent” craze sweeping the nation, it will be because she’s been such a whore to corporate interests (and her own incumbent interests) as a result) when she didn’t have to be and shouldn’t have been.

  10. Selective amnesia is a mandatory Rot-winger mental defense mechanism. It creates the necessary plausible deniability.

    • It doesn’t surprise me that politicians try tell us they never said something, even while it’s sitting there on YouTube, but Beck in in teevee and radio! He knows he’s being recorded!

      The only answer is that Beck and his kind know their followers are so sheep-like, they will never check up on their idol. Even if it tickles the back of their own mind.

  11. Gulf recovery hits language barrier.

    Heard on PRI (Public Radio International). Another aspect of the spill –
    The need for Viet Namese interpreters. Seems 30% of the shrimpers and all that goes with that are Viet Namese.

  12. tombaker, here are some great sites for bird identification.

    [Hope it will let me do all three.]

    Cornell Lab of Ornithology

    What Bird

    The Feather Atlas – Flight Feathers of North American Birds

  13. Z, I’ve read that there is other material coming out of the pipe. Which, would certainly affect the amount of oil coming out.

    I still wonder why BP’s not releasing more footage, however.

    Generally, when large power-based bureaucracies (governments and corporations are great examples) are being tight-fisted with information they usually have something to hide.

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