The Oscars are about to begin. Here's a thread to discuss. Neil Patrick Harris is hosting. The red carpet hosts were unwatchable, where do they find these people? Even Robin Roberts is way too over-animated and seems phony.I hope the show is better.

Best Picture:

• American Sniper
• Birdman
• Boyhood
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• The Imitation Game
• Selma
• The Theory of Everything
• Whiplash

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I've been catching up on my reading this weekend, the snow that began more than 24 hours ago is still coming down.

It's also Oscar night, which means the Red Carpet should be starting soon.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

From our heart to yours, Happy Valentine's Day.

If you have a romantic event planned, feel free to share. If not, this is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Busy day. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

ISIS has released Issue 7 of Dabiq, its English magazine. You can read it here.

It's 83 pages long, discusses ISIS' latest atrocities (the killing of the Japanese hostages and Jordanian pilot) and profiles Kosher Market killer Amedy Coulibaly. It ends with John Cantlie, who writes:

Despite being a prisoner, I’ve been shown respect and kindness, which I haven’t seen from my own government. Even if I had the choice, could I honestly return to and live in a country that disowned the other Britons, all their families, and myself so contemptuously?

Jon Stewart is leaving the Daily Show this year. He's been there 16 years.

NBC has announced Brian Williams will be suspended for 6 months without pay.

What will it take to get the media to stop inserting auto-play videos in news articles, forcing us to watch and listen to their irrelevant and unappealing news announcers? We do know how to read. [More...]

The Grammys are on tonight. Bob Dylan got the MusiCares Person of the Year award. The LA Times has lots of coverage of everything Grammy releated.

Update: I didn't even recognize the opening act (ACDC) until they played Highway to Hell. The audience was singing along like it was the song of the century. Ariana Grande: I don't think I've ever heard her sing before. Her song choice almost put me to sleep. Very boring.

I was about to turn off the show when Tom Jones and whoever started singing "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" as a tribute to the married couple who wrote it who were in the audience. I never heard of them. But I'm glad I didn't stop watching, they sang it really well, and it can't be easy to make that song sound fresh. But the woman's outfit was awful. Big girl underpants covered from neck to floor by some sheer thing with huge black appliques. It wouldn't look good on anyone, but it really looked terrible on her. [More....]

Our last open thread is full, here's a new one, all topics welcome.

Last day of court this week. A lot of motions due Friday, though.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Did you know the vaccine debate we are now in the middle of was an issue decided by the Supreme Court? In 1905! From the first Justice Harlan's opinion for the Court in Jacobson v. Massachusetts:

Here's a new open thread, all topics welcome.

I'm on a break from court and see that the Jordanian pilot was burned alive. The photos are horrific, the video is worse. No links here please.

Trial has begun in France for Dominique Strauss-Kahn and more than a dozen others on organized pandering charges (technically called "proxénétisme aggravé," which translates as aggravated procuring for the purposes of prostitution.) The charges result from a long-term financial investigation dubbed the Carlton Affair, into whether DSK knew that prostitutes who attended various business functions were part of an organized solicitation effort by businessmen and hotels using unlawful corporate funds. Background here and here.

Prostitution is legal in France. Profiting from prostitution (supplying them to others) is not. The issue is whether DSK was "complicit" in the acts of the businessmen who supplied the prostitutes or knew the businessmen were using corporate funds to pay the prostitutes. DSK has said he attended the parties but did not know the women were prostitutes. Other defendants include a senior police chief and businessmen. DSK is represented by the Henri Le Clerc, now 84. His view: [More...]