President-Elect Barack Obama Introduces Economic Team Today - Video

President-Elect Barack Obama introduced his Economic Team today.   I have an earlier post on it, but this one features a two-part video: the presentation and the press conference after it.






Press Conference:


 

Alan Colmes Leaves Hannity & Colmes For Liberal Pastures

Realizing I think that liberalism is back and "in" and "green", Alan Colmes of Hannity & Colmes on Fox News, is leaving at the end of the year .  He's already got a blog up called "Liberland" under the URL http://www.alan.com -- I'm not kidding.

Alan Colmes Leaves Hannity & Colmes For Liberal Pastures

Realizing I think that liberalism is back and "in" and "green", Alan Colmes of Hannity & Colmes on Fox News, is leaving at the end of the year.  He's already got a blog up called "Liberland" under the URL http://www.alan.com -- I'm not kidding.

J.J. Abrams Star Trek: More On The May 9th 2008 Movie

I just happened upon this account of a Star Trek Movie press event attended by Dave Itzkoff of the New York Times.  J.J. Abrams was the host, and four clips from the upcoming blockbuster were shown.  This is the "meat" of what Itzkoff reported (spoilers):  

1. The young James T. Kirk (played by Chris Pine) is drinking forlornly at a bar in 23rd century Iowa (where they still serve Budweiser). Without much success, he flirts with a young Starfleet recruit named Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and picks a fight with four Starfleet grunts who clobber him. Kirk’s bravado impresses another Starfleet officer, Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), who knew Kirk’s late father, and goads Kirk into joining the Starfleet Academy. “Your father was the captain of a starship for 12 minutes,” Pike tells him. “He saved 800 lives, including your mother’s. Including yours. I dare you to do better.”

2. A medical officer named McCoy (Karl Urban) helps smuggle Kirk aboard the starship Enterprise by injecting him with a vaccine that induces the symptoms of a mysterious disease. While his hands and tongue swell up, Kirk races around the ship, trying to convince the crew they’re about to enter a trap set by the nefarious Romulans. We get our first glimpse of the young Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto of television’s “Heroes,” in a mop-top haircut and pointy ears), as well as Spock’s human mother (Winona Ryder) and the Romulan bad guy Nero (Eric Bana, in heavy-duty prosthetic makeup).

3. The Enterprise jettisons Kirk on a remote ice planet, where he meets the aged, future incarnation of Spock (ladies and gentlemen, Mister Leonard Nimoy!) as well as a young Starfleet engineer named Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg). With Old Spock’s help, Scotty completes a mathematical formula that permits living beings to be teleported onto vessels moving at warp speed. (Of course.) As Kirk and Scotty prepare to beam back onto the Enterprise, Kirk wonders if time-traveling and peeking into the future is cheating; Old Spock tells him it’s “a trick I learned from an old friend.”

4. In a lengthy action sequence, Kirk, Sulu (John Cho) and a third, red-shirted Starfleet recruit (don’t get too attached to him) parachute from the upper atmosphere of the planet Vulcan onto a giant drill that is burrowing a hole to the center of the planet. Kirk and Sulu disable the drill, but not before it drops a charge into the planet’s core. Back on the Enterprise, Spock realizes that the charge, when detonated, will create a black hole where his home world used to be – and he now has mere minutes to evacuate the planet’s entire population.

The second trailer was introduced last week.  Here's my review of the movie thus far, based on what I saw:

Richard Farina On Hacking Airport Wi-Fi

Richard Farina booted up his computer on an American Airlines flight in October from New York to San Francisco. It was one of the first commercial flights to offer wireless Internet service. Within a couple minutes of reaching 10,000 feet, Farina was snooping the airwaves with the ability to see what his fellow pass

read more | digg story

Trade group: video output limits will hit millions of HDTVs

20 million HDTV sets could be adversely affected by Selectable Output Control, a trade association warns. Another group calls that estimate low.

read more | digg story

Despite Oklahoma's win, Texas moves up to No. 2 in new BCS

After its dominating win over Texas Tech Saturday night in Norman, Oklahoma made a compelling case to be playing for the national title in Miami.But it's the team that handed the Sooners their only loss of the season who would be playing in the BCS championship game against No. 1 Alabama if the season ended Sunday.

read more | digg story

Charles Barkley, D. Manning, D. Vitale Join the Hall of Fame

Barkley was honored with a 2008 class that included former Kansas star Danny Manning, Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson and longtime Mount St. Mary's coach Jim Phelan. Former Utah All-American Arnie Ferrin also entered the college hall, as did announcers Dick Vitale and Billy Packer as contributors.

read more | digg story

Jets Beat Titans 34-13 - Five things we learned: Titans-Jets

Five things we learned from the Jets 34-13 dismantling of the previously undefeated Titans (Recap | Box Score) at LP Field on Sunday.....

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Bruce Lee Plays Ping Pong with Nunchucks - Video

All I can say is AMAZING. You've got to see it to believe it.

OFFBEAT: University of Illinois Coach Alledgedly Does Something He Should Not Have Done

This is certainly offbeat news away from the depressing economic information we're being bombarded with.  According to the Associated Press and Fan I.Q , a now former gymnastics coach at the University of Illinois was rumored, but not confirmed to have placed a camera in the women's gymnastic team's locker room.  


Yikes!  And he was the coach!  

Why do that?  If he wanted to date one of them, yes they're young but not that young, but reportedly so was he -- all in their 20s for the most part and well over 18 and in college -- just ask for a date.  U.S.A Soccer star Brandy Chastain dated her coach and now they're married!  It's not an unusual happening by any stretch in college -- sorry, it's not.  And it's far better than dating a student who's class he teaches because he's not giving her a grade.  Believe me, it happens more than you think.  But this?  WFT was he thinking?  (If it's true; I hope not.)  


Geez.  

Obama Economic Team: Tim Geithner, Christine Rohmer, Lawrence Summers

President-Elect Barack Obama's just annouced his new economic team this morning :  New York Federal Reserve head Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary, UC Berkeley Professor Christine Rohmer as chair of his Council of Economic Advisers, and former Harvard President Lawrence Summers as head of National Economic Council.


Geithner and Summers have been much-talked about. Summers, even with his mistatements on women, is considered a bright and effective economic policy-maker. Geithner is so well respected on Wall Street that the Dow jumped 200 points after Friday's news leak of his selection as Treasury Secretary.



The surprise is Christine Rohmer, who's well-known in the San Francisco Bay Area as a professor of Economics at Cal-Berkeley. I personally met Professor Rohmer during my second year as a graduate student at UC Berkeley. I found her to be a delightful mix of the personable and the intellectual. A great mix to advance policy points and ideas. On that, Dr. Rohmer was well-regarded and popular with students, and I think if memory serves, won an award for teaching. The point is she can take complex economic matters and explain them in such a way that people can learn them.