[Update: Thanks to our good friend Skippy for the great photo. Check out his post on the blizzard, and Cookie Jill found this site of Colorado webcams.]

Wow. I really feel for all those people stuck in the aiport for two days or more. The Denver Airport just announced it won't reopen until noon on Friday.

My blizzard pictures are here. I'm just about to venture out -- on foot. Forget about driving anywhere.

There are lots of people and their dogs in the street, it's still snowing, and I can't open my balcony door so I'm getting a little bit of cabin fever. (Check the difference from when the blizzard was only hours old.)

See you later. I hope to have more pictures upon my return.

Update: I'm back and have updated the pictures with street scenes. I was way overdressed, it's not cold out. The main streets (all the one way streets near downtown, in Uptown and Capitol Hill) are plowed. Lots of people are driving.

The biggest action was at...the liquor store!

Let it snow! We're locked in by a fierce blizzard. Denver is shut down. Even the federal government has closed -- the Colorado Federal Executive Board has ordered all Federal departments and agencies to close. Hundreds of flights have been canceled. Boulder just announced it will be shut down through Thursday.

It's a winter wonderland.

It so happens I am not a big fan of Michael Crowley's work - his dismissiveness of the Netroots in particular - but Michael Crichton's attack is so below the belt that it is jaw dropping.

What a jerk.

More here.

The man who overturned Latin America's most stable democracy in 1973 and murdered thousands now meets his maker:

Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who overthrew Chile's democratically elected Marxist president in a bloody coup and ruled this Andean nation for 17 years, died Sunday, dashing hopes of victims of his regime's abuses that he would be brought to justice. He was 91.

. . . Chile's government says at least 3,197 people were killed for political reasons during his rule, but after leaving the presidency in 1990 Pinochet escaped hundreds of criminal complaints because of his declining physical and mental health. Pinochet took power on Sept. 11, 1973, demanding an unconditional surrender from President Salvador Allende as warplanes bombed the presidential palace in downtown Santiago. Instead, Allende committed suicide with a submachine gun he had received as a gift from Fidel Castro.

As the mustachioed Pinochet crushed dissent during his 1973-90 rule, he left little doubt about who was in charge. ''Not a leaf moves in this country if I'm not moving it,'' he once said.

I do not romanticize Salvador Allende. I believe he was creating chaos in Chile and would have had his own coup if he could have. But it was Pinochet who attacked democracy. It was Pinochet who murdered thousands.

The crimes are his. The infamy his. As it should be. Do NOT rest in peace murderer. Of humans. And democracy.

I was reading Marc Cooper's LA Times article on the resurgence of downtown Las Vegas, when I came across this:

[Mayor Oscar] Goodman, meanwhile, is pushing ahead with another of his brainchildren aimed at saving downtown. He's persuaded the city to raise $30 million in bonds funding to convert the historic Post Office and Federal Court House into what's commonly being called the "Mob Museum" — a possible rival to the Liberace Museum and Elvis-a-Rama, both of which prosper closer to the Strip.

Goodman is bickering with critics over how much of the new museum's focus should be, precisely, on mobsters and how much on the broader history. I think I'm with the mayor on this one. Make it about the mob — something you can't get elsewhere — and give people one more reason to come downtown and keep this treasured and threatened corner of Americana alive.

I'm with the Mayor and Marc. Make it about the mob. I love Las Vegas, both the faux luxe of the Strip and the faux seediness of downtown. But Oscar is Oscar, and any city that elects a Mayor that used to be a criminal defense lawyer, and then makes him a hero, should at least share the glitter with some of those who made his reign possible: his clients. There's only one Oscar, only one Las Vegas and both owe a debt, if only in a fantasy world, to the so-called "Mob."

Bring on the Mob Museum. I'll be there with my kid...just like I took him to Alcatraz in San Francisco. Fun is fun, and Las Vegas is, after all, the queen city of fun.

As of right now, it looks like Florida will face Ohio State for the NCAA football championship:

Florida passed Michigan and returned to No. 2 in The Associated Press Top 25 and the coaches' poll on Sunday. While the Gators had a slim lead of three points over Michigan in the AP poll, they were 26 points ahead of the Wolverines in the USA Today poll -- a margin that could help get Florida into the national title game.

The coaches' poll is one of three components used in the Bowl Championship Series standings, along with the Harris poll and a compilation of six computer ratings.

A report in the Los Angeles Times, citing a BCS source, said that Florida will indeed be the No. 2 team in the final BCS standings that will be officially announced later Sunday.

Full disclosure, I grew up in Florida and am a diehard Gators fan but this gives me no pleasure. Opinions deciding who plays in a championship game? Please. It is long past time for a playoff.

This is an Open Thread.

One of my personal favorites, the great film director Robert Altman has passed away:

Robert Altman, the caustic and irreverent satirist behind "M-A-S-H," "Nashville" and "The Player" who made a career out of bucking Hollywood management and story conventions, died at a Los Angeles Hospital, his Sandcastle 5 Productions Company said Tuesday. He was 81.

A five-time Academy Award nominee for best director, most recently for 2001's "Gosford Park," he finally won a lifetime achievement Oscar in 2006. "No other filmmaker has gotten a better shake than I have," Altman said while accepting the award. "I'm very fortunate in my career. I've never had to direct a film I didn't choose or develop. My love for filmmaking has given me an entree to the world and to the human condition."

RIP. Your art will live forever.

If it's for world peace, it would be rude to say "no."

The Global Orgasm for Peace was conceived by Donna Sheehan, 76, and Paul Reffell, 55, whose immodest goal is for everyone in the world to have an orgasm Dec. 22 while focusing on world peace.

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time:

The mayor [of Edmond, OK] personally distributed thousands of fliers discouraging underage drinking only to find they mistakenly contained the phone number for a sex talk line.

The mayor insists that the mistake is "not part of the story." Correction: it is the story. And it's a pretty funny story, at that.

An op-ed in the New York Times today hearts Omaha as a very livable city.

According to the cost of living comparison calculator at CNNMoney.com, if you were earning $229,000 in Manhattan, or $153,000 in Queens, you’ll be able to maintain the same standard of living in Omaha with a salary of $100,000 (and not because rodeos are cheaper than Broadway shows). Your money will go farther, and you’ll find less competition for jobs: Omaha’s unemployment rate (3.3 percent) is lower than New York’s (4.5 percent). While you are job hunting and living off your real-estate profits, groceries, utilities and health care will all cost roughly one-third less than you are paying in New York.

Coincidentally, I happen to be in Omaha for the fourth time since July. It's a very nice city. There's a lot of money in Omaha. It's quiet and peaceful. It's also about as red a state as you'll find anywhere.

by TChris

At this writing, no details are available beyond the basics:

A small aircraft crashed into a high-rise on the Upper East Side, setting off a fire and startling New Yorkers, police said. There were conflicting reports on whether the aircraft was a small plane or a helicopter.

CNN has more. A witness indicates that the aircraft, or parts of it, may have hit the condominium tower while falling from above.

Update: The NY Times reports confusion as to whether the aircraft struck near the 20th floor or the 40th floor. The latest AP story indicates that this was likely a tragic accident, not an act of terrorism.

Second update: The small plane was piloted by Corey Lidle, a major league pitcher who was recently traded to the Yankees. Lidle was apparently a relatively inexperienced pilot, flying a plane he'd recently purchased. News reports on the radio indicate that three others are dead.

The Comair commuter plane that crashed in Kentucky this morning killing 49 people, all but the pilot, reportedly took off on the wrong runway, one too short for commercial planes.

The crash was the country's worst domestic airplane accident in nearly six years.

How tragic. Our condolences go to the families of the victims.